This study examined the marketing channel and pricing system of cashew nut in the eastern part of Kogi state. A total of 180 respondents were randomly selected from 3 market zones of the area. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result from the study indicated a unidirectional movement of cashew nut from the producers to the final consumers. 14.67% of the marketers were involved in retailing and small scale business, 38.33% were bulk assemblers and 20.00% of them engaged in wholesales. This signifies the dominance of the middlemen in the marketing activities of the study area. An average peak price of N60000.00k/ton was recorded in the months of September-October, while the least prices were recorded before and at the beginning of cashew nut production period. The marketing of cashew nut is mostly affected by price instability due to seasonality nature of its production and lack of storage and processing facilities. However, a controllable pricing system for efficient and effective marketing can be ensured by proper storage and consistent supply of cashew nut in order to keep the market active all through the year.

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Smallholder farmers in rural Nigeria face farm labour shortages and the need to find ways of dealing with this problem is therefore apt for food security and socioeconomic improvement. In an attempt to deal with this problem, Nigerians rural farmers constitute themselves into farmers' labour groups in other to meet their farm and non-farm labour needs. Apart from supplying farm and non-farm labour, farmers' organizations can also bring about farmer-tofarmer extension service to members and non-members. Farmers' labour groups in eastern Kogi State adopt this extension strategy to share ideas, network with other farmers within the social system and develop managerial capability to handle their farm problems. A total of 160 farmers' labour groups were identified by the researchers and all the labour groups were purposively selected. And from each of the identified farmers' labour groups, the heads of each group were selected, thereby giving rise to 160 respondents for the study. Structured interview schedule was administered on the respondents. Data collected was presented using frequency distribution, percentage and mean statistics. Researchers' findings revealed that, joint-problem solving (M =2.8), increased in farmers' managerial ability (M =2.7), promotion of knowledge-sharing (M= 2.5), and improved farmer-to-farmer networking (M =2.4) were some of the extension services rendered by farmers' labour groups to their members. In carrying out their activities, farmers' labour groups face a lot of challenges such as high poverty level of farmers (M =3.0), low extension contact and poor health status of farmers (M = 2.7 respectively), and ruralurban migration (M=2.6) among others. Policy statements that can improve the socioeconomic status of farmers, strengthen rural organizations and strong research-extension-farmer-linkage were suggested. Journal Seek, Scientific Commons, and http://journal.aesonnigeria.org Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) http://www.ajol.info/index.php/jae Results and Discussion Socio-economic variables of respondentsThe socio-economic characteristics of the respondents were presented in Table 1. According to the table majority (75.00%) of the farmers were males with a mean age of about 51 years. Majority (45.63%) of these farmers had primary education, though 30.00% had secondary education and only 3.13% of the farmers had tertiary education. The findings revealed that, 78.76% of the respondents are literate, and high or fairly literate farmers may be favourably disposed to accept and adopt farm technologies than the illiterate ones. Adejo, et al (2012) reported that the more educated a farmer is the more he/she becomes more civilized and informed about scientific agricultural practices. The table further revealed that most (55.00%) of the farmers had a household size of between 1-5 persons with a mean farm size of about 3 hectares and mean farming

The study investigated trends in rice grain and cassava tuber value addition through processing. Among the staple foods in Nigeria, rice and cassava have gained special prominence and priority attention by the government in terms of their production and value addition. The result indicated that the rice and cassava value chain is affected by different policy regimes. It was also found that women in the north central of Nigeria participated actively in rice and cassava value addition with some challenges. It is recommended that women processors of these commodities should have access to productive resources that can help add value to these commodities, training women on improved value added technologies and innovations by both public and private organizations, and most importantly, making these innovations and technologies affordable, adoptable, and adaptable will go a long way to boost their value added on these commodities through processing.