ABSTRACT

The study analyzed the determinants of farmland value and productivity of food crop farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to examine the socio-economic characteristics of the food crop farmers, examine the methods of land acquisitions, determine the productivity of farmland and determinants of productivity of food crops, and evaluate the factors influencing farmland value and the value of farmland. Primary data were collected using a set of structured questionnaires from 250 respondents who were selected through purposive and random sampling techniques. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, productivity ratio and econometric tools. The results of the socio- economic characteristics of the farmers revealed a mean age of 40.22 years, an average of 9.07 years of formal education, a mean of 10.4 years of farming experience, an average of 6 persons per household. The mean farm size was 1.028 hectare and inheritance as the method of land acquisition. The results further showed that productivity of farmland was 3.09 and productivity of food crop farmers was 3.48. The results of the Ordinary Least Square multiple regression model for productivity of food crop farmers further showed that depreciated fixed input and cost of soil improvement were significant at (p< 0.01), type of soil, quantity of fertilizer, agrochemical, household size and farm experience were significant factors at (P<0.05) for productivity of food crops in Imo State. The result further showed that the average farmland value was N53,975.91. The results of the Ordinary Least Squares multiple regression model for factors influencing farmland value showed that location and purpose of use were significant at(P< 0.05), access to road and returns on land were significant at (p<0.1) and distance, community levy and duration of tenancy were significant factors for farmland value at (P<0.01). Reduction in the annual rental value of farmland through the removal of community levy, communal allocation of farmland to individual farmers and access to credit were recommended for rural farmers to increase the size of their farmland and to increase their productivity in the study area.