Adoption of ‘Ofada’ Rice Variety and Technical Efficiency of Rice-Based Production Systems in Ogun State, Nigeria

Since the mid-1970s, rice consumption in Nigeria has risen tremendously at about 10% per annum due to changes in consumer preference. Most public and private sector interventions programmes at increasing the productive capacities of various factors within the system notwithstanding, domestic production has not been able to meet the local demand leading to considerable import, which today stood at about 1,000,000 metric tones yearly. Milled rice is procured from neighbouring West African communities with Nigeria spending annually over U.S. $300 million on its imports alone. Inadequate use of yield improving technologies has been identified as major setback in rice-based production systems in most developing economies especially in Africa. This study had examined the factors influencing adoption of the improved Ofada rice variety as well as measured the technical efficiency of rice farmers in the rice-growing Obafemi-Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected in a two-stage sampling procedure and analysed for 105 rice farmers selected from ten (10) prominent rice-producing communities in the study area. Probit and Gross margin models were used to estimate the determinants of adopting the improved Ofada rice variety and the profitability of the rice enterprise, respectively, while farmers’ production efficiency was measured using the stochastic frontier model. Profitability index was 0.32 indicating that every Naira expended on Ofada rice production will return about 32kobo to the rice farmer as net income. Years of farmer’s education, number of contacts with extension workers and cost of cultivars were the variables that jointly influenced adoption of the improved Ofada rice variety being statistically significant at 5%, 10% and 5%, respectively. The maximum likelihood estimate showed that quantity of planted cultivars and size of farmland are positively significant at 1% depicting an increase in rice output as farmland and seeds are increase. It was recommended that policy that will further enhance adoption of the improved Ofada rice variety be put in place as well as effective extension programmes to sufficiently service the farmers.