ABSTRACT

This study was designed to examine gender and resource use efficiency in rice production systems in Abia State of Nigeria. Rice has grown in importance as a major component of Nigerian diets with its consumption increasing at an annual rate of 11 percent. The crop has been identified as a very important primary food source, drawn from the conclusion that ricebased systems are essential for food security, poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods. Regional rice production has failed to meet the increased demand for rice due to population growth and rapid urbanization. This has led to reliance on rice imports to bridge the everwidening gap between demand and supply. This is despite the fact that the country has the potential to greatly increase its rice production as the country is blessed with rich and abundant rice growing environments. Also, the contributions of women in farming are not duly recognized as they are not critically involved in the process of farm problem analysis, planning and decision making or provided with the training, credit and support they needed. This study therefore specifically seeks to examine the socio-economic characteristic and the constraints faced by the men and women rice farmers, analyze the net profit associated with rice production by the farmers based on gender and production system, compare the technical and allocative efficiency and returns to scale of the farmers by gender and production system and compare the mean output of the men and women rice farmers and for the various production systems. Primary data collected from a random sample of 142 rice farmers from 2 Local Government Areas, purposively selected based on performance in rice production were used for the study. The 142 rice farmers were disaggregated in two ways. On the basis of gender into 71 men and 71 women rice farmers and on the basis of production systems into 46 inland valley, 41 upland and 55 swamp rice. The cost route technique was adopted in data collection. Data analysis consisted of the use of such statistical and econometric tools as frequencies, percentages, averages, and multiple regression analysis by the ordinary least squares, the t-test of significance between two means and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results of the data analysis show that the mean ages of the men and women rice farmers were 46 years and 43 years respectively. Also the bulk of the farmers are married and the mean household size was 6 and 7 for the men and women farmers respectively. 90.14 percent and 78.87 percent of the men and women farmers had one form of formal education or the other ranging from primary to tertiary education. The mean hectarage cultivated by the men and women rice farmers were 2.27 hectares and 1.27 hectares respectively. The result further revealed the men farmers to be more experienced than their women counterpart as shown by the mean experience of 19 years against 15 years of the women farmers. About 95.77 percent of the men and 87.32 percent of the women farmers used at least one form of improved rice variety for cultivation. The main source of land for the men and women farmers was inheritance and lease/rent respectively. Some of the major problems confronting the farmers were lack of fund, loans/cridtcarcity and high cost of labour; high interest rate; pests, diseases and theft; high cost of inputs, fertilizer and agro chemicals; limited access and high cost of land. The result further revealed that rice farming is profitable. The net profits respectively for the men and women farmers are N 77605.11 for the men and N 70126.14 for the women rice farmers. The net profit for the inland valley, upland and swamp farms were N 98811.86, N 59016.32 and N 73020.72 respectively. The women farmers were less technically efficient than the men farmers were. All the defined farmer groups were' characterized by the same production VIII function except the inland valley and swamp farmer group. None of the defined farmer groups achieved absolute allocative efficiency in the use of farm resources (achieved an efficiency index of unity by using the profit maximizing input level). The women farmers, under-utilized land, other inputs and capital inputs while their men counterparts in addition to these resources under-utilized family labour. The upland farmers under-utilized all the farm resources while the inland and upland farmers both under-utilized farmland, other inputs and capital inputs and over-utilized family labour and hired labour. All the defined farmer groups are characterized by increasing returns to scale, which implies that they are operating in region one of the production, function and hence need to employ more resources. The mean output of the men farmers was significantly higher than th'at of the women rice farmers, while there was no significant difference in the mean output of rice from the production systems. It is recommended that policies that will enable the farmers to remain in rice production, encourage reallocation and redistribution of farm resources, grant farmers increased access to land and enable them employ more use of farm resources so as to achieve increased efficiency, productivity and constant returns to scale should be put in place.