ASSESSMENT OF CROP WATER USE EFFICIENCY IN MAIZE PRODUCTION: IMPLICATION FOR INCOME AND FOOD AVAILABILITY IN ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study assessed crop water use efficiency in maize production and its implication on income and food availability in Ondo State Nigeria. The study specifically described the socio-economic characteristics of respondents in the study area; estimated the actual yield and gross margin of maize produced by respondents, determined the crop water productivity of maize by their yield and Gross margin and determined the effect of water productivity of maize on yield and income of farmers in the study area. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 180 respondents. Stage one involved purposive selection of three Agricultural Zones out of the four zones in the state where maize is being cultivated extensively. Stage two involved random selection of two Local Governments out of the selected zones. In the third stage, a random selection of one community from each of the Local Government was done. The last stage involved simple random selection of 30 respondents in each community. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistic, Gross Margin Analysis and CROPWAT Model. The findings of the study revealed that average age of the respondents were 46.91 years which showed that the respondents in the study area were still in their productive age. Majority (83.3%) of the respondents were married. Only 1.1% of the respondents do not have formal education and majority (66.7%) of the respondents were male. Furthermore, majority of the respondents (28.3%) of the respondents had above 15 years farming experience. On the average, distance of the respondents from their home to the farm was 2.49km. In addition, majority (91.4%) of the respondents earn less than ₦500,000 annually. The mean yield per hectare was 1012.1kg for all the respondents. Considering yield by farm size, the result of the study showed that respondents with farm size 0.5ha and less had 606.5kg while those with farm size 2.51had 3219.5 kg. The result of the CROPWAT analysis revealed that the crop water productivity in the study area was relatively low. The crop water productivity of maize ranged from 0.07 to 0.86kgm-3 with overall average of 0.30kgm-3. This indicated a deficiency in the full water requirement that leads to lower crop yield.The effect of crop water productivity on revenue as revealed in the findings showed that, there was an average deficit of 185.8kg in maize yield and average Gross Margin deficit of ₦ 30,276.3 in maize production. The study concluded that the water productivity is low bringing about low yield. To improve this situation, the study recommended that since the potentials of maize yield in the study area depend only on rain-fed agriculture, government and extension agent should empower and encourage farmers to go into irrigation so that they would be able to achieve their potential yield level.