ABSTRACT
This research is a comparative economic analysis of maize production under reduced and conventional tillage system in some selected local government areas of Kaduna state. A sample of 73 maize farmers were selected through simple random sampling technique as reduced tillage farmers and another set of 73 maize farmers were selected and grouped as conventional tillage maize farmers.
Two sets of data were obtained from each of the two groups. The primary data were collected using structured questionnaire administered on the farmer based on information at 2012 cropping season. The tools of analysis used were descriptive statistics, net farm income, multiple regression model and single difference estimator (SDE). The mean adoption index of reduced tillage was 0.31, implying that only 31% of the land area cultivated for maize was devoted to reduced tillage maize production. The results revealed that the average yields of reduced and conventional tillage were found to be 2512kg/ha and 2478kg/ha respectively.
The mean net farm income for reduced tillage maize farmers was N110,513.56/ha while the conventional tillage maize farmers was N87,165.10/ha. The return per naira invested in reduced tillage maize farmers was 1.76 and that of the conventional tillage maize farmers was 1.04. This suggested that maize production under reduced tillage system was much more profitable than conventional tillage system. The Ordinary Least Square Regression results revealed that the R2 was 0.40 and 0.5 which implies that 40% and 50% of the variation in the adoption was explained by the independent variables included in the model. The positive regression coefficients indicates that these variables leads to the adoption of reduced tillage system, while the negative regression coefficients indicates that they reduce the adoption of reduced tillage practiced on maize production in the study areas. SDE results revealed that the reduced tillage system had a positive effects on income of maize farmers as it increased income by N106, 227.82.
Recommendations made were that, the land use act of 1978 should be reviewed in order to allow farmers who are willing to practice reduce tillage maize production but may not have enough land to acquired sufficient land, government should encourage farmers by assisting them with credit and developing policies that would favour access to input and new farming technologies.
