Effect of Labour Scarcity on Rice Production and Yieldin Guma Local Government Area of Benue State

Abstract

The study assesses the effects of labour scarcity on rice production and yield in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State. Survey research design was adopted; with a population of 5125 registered smallholder rice farmers, out of which 371 respondents were sampled using the multi-stage sampling strategy. The questionnaire was then used to collect data from the sample. Data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPPS 20.0) from which simple frequencies and percentages were presented in tables and graphs to answer the research questions. Findings indicated that scarcity of labour for rice production is caused by Farmers/Herdsmen clashes, migration due to improved education; preference for other rural jobs, drudgery of farm activities as well as lack of basic social amenities in the rural areas. The findings also revealed that labour scarcity affects rice production and yield adversely in the study area as it leads to poor rice yields, smaller sizes of rice farms, poor income, preference for other crops as well increased poverty levels.

Assessing Rice Farmers’ Coping Strategies to Labour Scarcity in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria

“…It has been reported that the agricultural sector in Nigeria is dominated by small-scale farmers whose farms vary from between 0.10 and 5.99 hectares in size and they make up about 80.35% of all the 29,800 million farm holdings in the country. These farmers use traditional technologies called hoe-cutlass culture and their capital structure is characterized small tools, and mainly dependent on the usage of family labour [4,5,6].…”

“…Human or manual labour has also been reported as the predominant source of labour available to smallholder farmers in Nigeria. These farmers make up about 85% of domestic agricultural output in Nigeria, thus, human labour accounts for the domestic food supply in Nigeria [6,9].…”

“…Similarly, in Kenya, Ouma, Ombati, and Onyango, [11] also reported a severe case of labour scarcity which required farmers to seek out coping strategies. Back home in Nigeria, various studies have also established this fact; researchers have found different levels of agricultural labour scarcity and this has great impact on food security [5,8,6].…”

“…It has therefore become necessary to explore various ways through which the human labour available can be maximally utilized for optimum productivity. In their assessment of the effects of labour scarcity on rice production and yield in Guma local government area of Benue State, Pinga, Gomez, Fatty and Onyemma [6], reported that labour for the production of rice was very scarce, and this has adversely affected the production and yield of rice in the area. Small scale rice farmers in Guma local government area of Benue state have been struggling with this menace of labour scarcity for quite some time now, due to the labour intensive nature of rice production, this study assessed the various coping strategies used by farmers in the face of these challenges.…”