Survey of cattle rearing by herdsmen in Lagos State, Nigeria

The incidence of clashes between herders and crop farmers elsewhere necessitated the survey of cattle rearing by herdsmen in Lagos State to obtain baseline information on the herders, their cattle and the commonly grazed forages. Self-administered questionnaires were administered on the herders in Epe, Badagry and Ikorodu Local Government areas being the agrarian zones of Lagos State. Data obtained were analyzed by descriptive statistics. Results on the socio-economic characteristics showed that all the respondents that reared cattle were male and mostly (77%) married. About 70% of respondents have been in the business for over 20 years. 70% of the farmers attended only Quranic school. They mostly (63%) lived with their family who assisted in milk processing. The breeds of cattle reared were White Fulani (50%), Keteku (20%), Sokoto Gudali (20%) and others 10%. The herd size of respondents varied between 11-20 bulls (73%), 16-30 cows (57%) and 20 calves (50%). Most (57%) of the herders grazed their cattle for one to four hours daily. Respondents (67%) also reported incidence of clashes with crop farmers which were settled by the community leaders through restitution. Continuous grazing was mostly (70%) practiced. The commonest forages selected were; Panicum maximum, Chromolaena odorata, Sida acuta, Centrosema pubescens and Tridax procumbens. It is concluded that cattle herders and the residents cohabit in Lagos State

RESOURCE UTILIZATION BEHAVIOUR OF CASSAVA PRODUCERS IN EPE AREA OF LAGOS STATE: STOCHASTIC FRONTIER PRODUCTION FUNCTION APPROACH

The Stochastic frontier production function was used to assess the technical efficiency of cassava production in Epe Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. Results show that cassava farmers in the study area experienced increasing positive return-to-scale (2.2675. The study also reveals that a significant relationship exists between farm size, labour, planting materials, cost of other input and cassava output in the study area. Cassava farmers with large farmers are found to have higher net farm income per hectare than small holder farms in the study area. The study points to the fact that cassava farmers in the study area were not efficient in allocating their resources considering their scope of operation

The effect of rainfall variability on maize production in Lagos State, Nigeria

Despite technological advancement in maize seed and production improvement, the climate as a single factor still has significant influence on maize yield in Nigeria. With changes in weather and climate being experienced, the study therefore focused on the effect of climate on maize production which is expressed as a function of the variability in the rainfall pattern in Lagos State. The study employed the use of secondary data of rainfall and maize yield spanning 10 years from 1997 to 2006. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and simple linear regression. The planting date of maize fluctuated between 1999 and 2000 and the yield declined between 1999 - 2000 and 2002-2003 in response to variability in rainfall. Average estimates of rainfall and maize yield were 1,422.9 mm and 2,135 tonnes for the period under study while their variance estimates were 80908.77 mm and 46 tonnes with coefficients of variation of 19.99% and 10.04% respectively. The results also show that average change in rainfall impacted positively on maize yield throughout the period with a slope coefficient of 0.192 which means a unit increase in rainfall will lead to 0.192 unit increase in maize yield. The farmers were encouraged to adopt drought resistance maize varieties and collective irrigation facilities to cope with climate change phenomenon