Abstract:
The study examined the effects of adoption of improved rice varieties on production output among farmers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. It specifically examined the specific objectives the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, determined the level of adoption of improved rice varieties, identified the factors affecting adoption of improved rice varieties, examined the effect of the adoption of improved rice varieties on the respondents’ farm output and identified the constraints to adoption of improved rice varieties among the respondents. A survey was carried out with the use of structured questionnaire and focal group discussion to collect the needed data. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used in selecting 160 respondents for the study and questionnaire were administered on them. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, adoption index and logit regression. Inferential statsitics was also used to test the hypotheses for the study. The result of the data analysis revealed that majority 69.4% of the rice farmers were male while only 30.6% were female. About 72.0% of the rice farmers were married with mean age of 37 years. About 87% of the farmers attained one form of education or the other while about 61.2% have less than 10 years rice farming experience. 93.1% of the farmers had between 1 -5 ha farm size. The results of logit regression showed that level of education, awareness, farming experience, credit access, farm size, output after adoption were those variables that positively influence adoption of improved rice varieties while age, sex, marital status, source of labour were the variables that negatively influence adoption in the study area. Among the constraints that affect improved rice varieties in the study area, high cost of processing facilities and inconsistencies in the government policies were the most ranked. The study recommended increased access to formal credit and consumption of local rice in order to encourage rice production and enhance farmers’ income
