Determinants of Adoption of Improved Rice Production Technologies in Ebonyi State of Nigeria

Abstract

Ebonyi State is a major rice producing State in Southeast Nigeria. In recent times, rice production in the area has fallen short of the demand due to low yield ascribed to low adoption of improved production technologies disseminated by the Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) of the State. This study was undertaken to investigate the determinants of adoption of improved rice production technologies in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. Multi-stage random and systematic sampling techniques were used to select a total of 240 (two hundred and fourty) rice farmers from the three agricultural zones of the State. Primary data were collected with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire and interview schedule; and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The result obtained shows that rice farmers in Ebonyi State are aware of field-level improved rice production technologies such as the use of improved varieties (91.67%), use of agrochemicals (87.50%), zero tillage (85.42%), fertilizer application (83.33%) e.t.c. but, experienced gap in knowledge down the production value chain. The result of multiple regression analysis indicates a high co-efficient of multiple determination, R² of 76.6 percent was obtained. This indicates that about 76.6 percent of the variation in level of adoption of improved rice production technologies is influenced by the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents. Most of the independent variables met a priori expectations and were statistically significant at 5% and 1% levels of significance. Such variables that determine the adoption of these technologies include: gender, age, marital status, household size, e.t.c. A null hypothesis tested at 5% level of significance was rejected while its alternative was accepted. This implies that the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents do have significant effect on the level of adoption of improved rice production technologies. The result of factor analysis identified such constraints as: human/technology attributes, technical constraint, financial constraints, and poor institutional support as major constraints to adoption of improved rice production technologies in the State. Necessary recommendations such as designing farm-level technologies that reflect the socio-economic attributes, active participation of youths in agricultural empowerment interventions and complementing agricultural innovations with proper institutional framework for credit mobilization were made.

Keywords: Adoption, Rice Technologies, Farmers, Ebonyi State, Nigeria