Login

Proceedings

Find matching any: Reset
Add filter to result:
Precision Farm Labour Supply For Effective Cocoa Production In Nigeria
J. LAWAL
COCOA RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF NIGERIA

In Nigeria, labour is an essential factor in farming. In view of the importance of labour in agriculture, this study was carried out to investigate the sources of labour used in cocoa production. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 100 cocoa farming households. The first stage was a random selection of two Local Government Areas (LGAs), the second stage was the selection of two communities from each of the LGAs while the third stage involved the random selection of twenty five cocoa farming households from each of the communities, thus making a total of one hundred respondents. The data collected was analyzed with descriptive as well as inferential analysis. Descriptive analysis showed that most of the farmers (53.0%) utilized sharecropping source of labour, 22.0% utilized hired labour, 19.0% used reciprocal source of labour while 6.0% of the farmers used sole family labour for their farming activities. In terms of labour used for different activities, 94.0% of the farmers utilized hired labour for farm clearing while 61.0% utilized family labour for harvesting. All (100%) of the farmers used male labour for farm clearing while 60.0% utilized female labour for harvesting. The result of the multi-variate regression analysis shows that cocoa output (p<0.01), farm size (p<0.01) as well as wage rate (p<0.05) significantly affected the use of labour for cocoa production in the study area. The study recommended that government should equip rural areas with infrastructural facilities so as to stem rural-urban labour migration. There is also a need to educate farmers and encourage them on the use of labour relieving technologies such as mechanization and/or herbicides as these could be alternative methods to alleviate excessive amount on labour and a surety during labour scarce periods.

Keyword: Farm labour, cocoa production, hired labour, sharecropping, farmers