ISSN 2360-7971
Abstract
Accepted 8th July, 2019.
This paper discusses the Influence of (FVP) on the Production of Smallholder Farmers in Taraba State, Nigeria. Most agricultural outputs come from smallholder farms which are characterized as resource poor and rain fed agriculture using very low levels of fertilizer on less than 2.0 ha farm size . The level of fertilizer used per cultivated hectare is 8.4 kg/ha which is far lower than the 200kg/ha recommended by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).Specifically, the study sought to: ascertain farmers’ level of production as a result of implementation FVP; examine the differences in the quantity of fertilizer allotted to farmers across the years in FVP; assess the satisfaction of farmers participating in the FVP; and determine major challenges in the implementation of the FVP in Taraba State. The results show that during participation in FVP the respondents have an average of 359 bags (50kg) of main crops output of maize, rice, sorghum and cassava (t- value = 13.14; P= 0.00) as against average of 196 bags (50kg) before participation in the FVP of the main crops. Testing the null hypothesis (Ho1:), which states there is no significant difference in the quantity of total output of produce during the farmers involvement and before was rejected and the alternative (Ha:) accepted. The study further shows that there is no significant difference in the number of fertilizer allocation among the farmers in the 4 years of the implementation of FVP. Thus, the null hypothesis (Ho2) of no significant difference in the quantity of fertilizer allotted to farmers across the years was accepted, while the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was rejected accordingly. The study recommends that the number of bags of fertilizer per participating farmer should be increased to between 5 - 8 bags per season as against the 2-4 bags in the FVP. This would make farmers to increase output, income and food security of Nigeria.
Keywords: Fertilizer Voucher Programme (FVP), Production, Smallholder Farmers