OPTIMAL FARM PLAN FOR THE TREE CROPS PRODUCTION UNDER SMALL-SCALE IRRIGATION IN FADAMA AREAS OF NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study determined the Optimal farm plan for Fadama tree-crop farmers in Niger State, Nigeria. For the study, 120 Fadama tree-crop farm households were randomly selected and interviewed with the use of interview schedule accompanied by well structured questionnaires, Descriptive statistics and Linear Programming (LP) model were used to analyze the data. The result reveals that Fadama tree-crop farmers had small land holdings which were rented no a long term basis. Most of the household heads were males (98.3%) and having an average household persons size of 9 persons on average. The head of the households also had one form of modern education or the other (73.3%). Similarly, they also had tree-crop farming experience of about 8 years on average. The result of the LP analysis shows that only orange (citrus Lemon) enterprise should be carried out on a 0.712ha of farm land as this will yield on optimal return of N78.989.48 per hectare per year. However, capital was the only limiting resource in the study area and has a shadow price of N8.453k. Many problems constrained the use of Fadama resource for tree crop production in the area and these were ranked in order of importance, including limited fund, conflicts among its users, incidence of pests and disease infestation and land tenure problem. The study therefore recommends that farm families should direct their resources towards the production of only citrus lemon, and both governments and non-governmental organizations should assist in providing infrastructure and soft loans to farm families engaged in tree-crop production in the area.