Patterns and determinants of adoption of crop production technologies among food crop farmers in Nigeria

The need to improve agricultural productivity through technological adoption is undoubtedly critical in the drive for economic growth and poverty reduction in Nigeria. This study therefore examines availability, awareness and adoption rates of crop production technologies among farm household in Nigeria as well as the determinants.The study was based on data collected in a National Agricultural Research System (NARS) survey to determine available technologies, and a nationwide Farm Households Technology Use (FHTU) survey to assess awareness, adoption and impacts of the technologies on farm households. The NARS survey was focused on all public, private and multinational Institutions involved in agricultural research, extension and technology goods production and marketing identified across the six geopolitical divisions of Nigeria. The FHTU survey covered 1,663 randomly selected farm households drawn by multistage random sampling across about 240 farming communities/villages in 80 Agricultural Development Project (ADP) cells spread across all block in six states (Benue, Ebonyi, Cross-river, Ogun, Sokoto and Taraba), which were drawn one state per geopolitical division of Nigeria. The data were analysed using descriptive, budgetary and econometric techniques. The NARS survey revealed that a wide range of improved varieties of cassava (57), maize (54), rice (65) and tomato (11) as well as innovative farming practices, equipment and intermediate materials have been developed and released to farmers across the country. However, while the awareness rates of many of the technologies are quite high (above 70%), the adoption rates, defined by the percentage of potential users that have tried and are willing to continue the use of the technology, are generally low, except for cultivation of improved varieties (above 70%),and use of fertilizer (56%), herbicide (52%) and mechanised tillage (43%). The current (2011/2012) use rates were however much lower than the adoption rates due to non-availability of many of these technologies in the local market, and where available, high cost. There are also significant (p<0.01) variation in adoption rates of the technologies across the states, with likelihood of adoption generally declining significantly with increase in travel cost to nearest agro-service centre (p<0.05) and household size (p<0.05), but rising significantly with increase in farm size (p<0.01), household wealth (p<0.01), and education level of the household head (p<0.05). The likelihoods of adoption were also generally and significantly (p