EFFECTS OF AGRICUTURAL TECHNOLOGIES ON CASSAVA PRODUCTION BY SMALLHOLDER FARMERS IN BAYELSA STATE, NIGERIA

Well Researched and Ready to use Masters Dissertation, page number: 80, Department: Agricultural Economics

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Information

Agricultural technology is the knowledge applied by man to improve production or marketing processes; it is seen in hybrid seeds, improved crop varieties, pesticides, machinery, fertilizers etc. (Subba, Raghu, Neelakanta and Bhavani, 2004). Also Jeremy, (2013) defined agricultural technology as the tools or machines that are used primarily or entirely in order to support agricultural enterprise in modern agriculture. Agricultural technology is thus a combination of all management practices for producing or storing crop mixture, livestock etc. (Esther, 2004). The objective of technology is to provide more output from a given bundle of production inputs.

Agricultural Technology is quite broad and general, this study will contextualize technology from two classifications which are; hardware technology (embodied in the green revolution model, which promotes hybridization, use of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides etc., the use of farm inputs and equipment), and software technology (extension and farming system research). Some of the technologies used for cassava production were reported by Bucyana (2006), they are; biotechnology (production of zero-to-low cyanide cassava, production of genetically improved cassava, mass production of disease-free, pest resistant and high yielding cassava plants, through micro propagation), agricultural engineering (machinery, equipment and tool design for land preparation and harvesting e.g. ploughs, ridgers, cassava lifters, tuber harvester, screw press etc.), bio-intensive integrated pest management, herbicides, fertilizers, water management (irrigation), post harvest technology, training, research and extension on cassava with model villages etc.

Agricultural technology has been of immense contribution to countries such as Brazil, Thailand and Columbia. Before the use of agricultural technology (between 1986 and 1998),

the Brazilian cassava yields averaged 13 metric tonnes (MT) per hectare, the planting of improved, higher yielding, disease resistant, pest resistant and high starch content varieties of cassava resulted in increased yields (Kupoluyi, 2005). Low out-put small holder farmers averaged about 15 MT per hectare, with better lands yielding about 20 MT per hectare, using mechanized technology yields average 45 MT per hectare, with only 2.2 million hectares under cassava, Brazil produces about 24,000,000 MT per year, (Kupoluyi, 2005). Also in Columbia, despite its agro-ecological challenges, diversity, various systems of cultivation and utilization and other biological problems, yield averages of 12 MT per hectare were obtained; Thailand is often cited as a tropical country that has successfully transformed cassava into an industrial crop, this transformation was driven by a unique export opportunity. The Thailand cassava sector accelerated during the late sixties, increasing during the seventies and the eighties, with high feed import duties, the EU turned to Thailand for its cassava and soybean meal, as a ratio of 80:20 is equivalent in energy and protein to grain feeds such as maize and barley (Bokanga, 2001). Thus, Thailand cassava meal was exported to the European Union (EU) countries. In the late 60s, Thailand shifted its focus to cassava pellets processing, the processing into pellets reduces its volume by about 20-25%, thereby reducing transportation costs, there are approximately 200 pelleting factories in Thailand, with an average total capacity of 10 million tonnes per year. These entirely were achieved through the application of agricultural technologies, (Plucknett, 1998).

1.2 Problem Statement

Agriculture is the bedrock of all economies of the world and it is not an exception in Bayelsa. With over 70 per cent of the population in the rural area, and most of them dependent on agriculture, it follows that the strategy for economic transformation must address the barriers on production and funding, (Young, 2012). There are a number of natural barriers towards the realization of the food security goals, one of which is land availability. Bayelsa has a riverine setting, a lot of her communities are almost (and in some cases) completely surrounded by water, (Angela, 2011). According to the Bayelsa Development

and Investment Corporation, (2012), about three-quarters of its total area lie under water which makes available land for cassava production inadequate as it competes with other food crops produced in the state such as plantain, rice, oil palm, vegetables, cocoyam, etc. Therefore appropriate technological and management innovations should be incorporated to improve productivity.

Also efforts to increase food production as to alleviate food shortages and high cost of food items amongst the rural dwellers of Bayelsa state cannot be achieved with the traditional crop rotation system of agriculture. The drastic changes in agricultural practices during the past 100 years have come about in response to social needs, and we cannot turn the clock back and still feed the current human population (Nweke, Okorji, Njoku, King,1992). Studies carried out by Obisesan (2013), in southwest of Nigeria showed that to boost agricultural production and productivity, farmers have to use agricultural technologies but they lack the finance and as a result, the use of agricultural technologies is very low. Therefore, enhanced provision of rural credit would accelerate agricultural production and productivity (Briquette, 1999).

However, the first step in assessing the usefulness of the technology to cassava farmers in the study area is to determine the attributes responsible for choice of technology used among the farmers as well as the major constraints militating against the effective use of these technologies. Earlier studies by Dorp and Rulkens (1993), Agwu, (2002), Springer, (2002) and Kimenju, (2005), showed that farmer’s decision to use a particular technology was influenced by a number of reasons, some of which are market-driven, level of education, or socio-culturally biased.

These and other features endowed it with a special capacity to bridge the gap in food security, poverty alleviation and yet little is known about available technologies used in

production of cassava by smallholder farmers in Bayelsa state as well as factors that influence the level of usage of these technologies.

Previous studies have dealt on the agricultural technology adoption (Aliou and Ben,2012; Chukwuone, Agwu and Ozor, 2006), the role of agricultural technology in poverty reduction among crop farmers ( Nnadi, Chikaire, Nnadi, Utazi, Echetama and Okafor 2012; Datt, Jollifle and Sharma, 1998; De Janvry and Sadoulet. 2002). Little or nothing has been done to analyse the economic effects of agricultural technology on the production of cassava by smallholder farmers in Bayelsa State. Hence this study sought to examine the economic effects of agricultural technologies on cassava production by smallholder farmers in Bayelsa State.

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