An Investigation on Level of Utilization of Local and Improved Practices by Rice Value Chain Actors in Benue and Nasarawa States, Nigeria

An Investigation on Level of Utilization of Local and Improved Practices by Rice Value Chain Actors in Benue and Nasarawa States, Nigeria

Aveuya, A.A.1, Unongo, E.A.1* and Bogbenda, A2
1Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication, Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria
2Department of Agricultural Economics, Joseph Sarwuan tarka University Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria.
*Corresponding Author
DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2023.10711
Received:17 June 2023; Accepted: 29 June 2023; Published: 03 August 2023

Abstract: The study was carried out to investigate the level of utilization of local and improved rice practices by value chain actors in Benue and Nasarawa states, Nigeria. The population for the study comprised all the rice value chain actors in Benue and Nasarawa States. The specific objectives of the study were to: investigate the local practices of rice value chain actors; and investigate the level of use of improved practices by rice value chain actors in the study area. It was evident from the study that the pooled percentage for the two states (Benue and Nasarawa) was 22.5% for those who utilized traditional hoes while those who utilized cutlasses in the two states have pooled value of 21.2% and those who utilized winnowing baskets with a pooled value of 19.3% for the two states respectively. The level of utilization of improved practices by rice value chain actors in the two states for marketers, producers and processors have mean pooled value of 2.36, 2.21 and 2.14 respectively. Based on the study, it was concluded that the major local practices of rice value chain actors in the two states are still at crude level and the level of awareness of the rice value chain actors on improved practices is high. It was therefore recommended that, government should make available improved practices which are more less labour intensive but rather with higher performance at affordable price to the rice value chain actors; enough capacity building should be enforced to train intensively more rice value chain actors, and more awareness should be created by government capacity building agents among rice value chain actors on their operation to maximize their performance.

Keywords: Investigation; value chain; utilization

I. Introduction

Rice production in Nigeria is dominated by weak and inefficient production capacity based on poor modern facilities used by rice value chain actors at production level, processing and marketing levels respectively (Nasiru, 2014). The poor modern facilities to improve rice quality along the value chain limit quantity of production, quantity of processed rice and ease of marketing and distribution of the commodity (Abo, 2012). Ukwungu and Abo (2013) observed that rice value chain actors at production level engaged in the utilization of local practices and equipment such as hoes, cutlass, local seed varieties, birds scalers, manual weeding, manual harvesting using local knives and sickles, processing practices such as winnowing using winnowing baskets, parboiling using steel drums, use of fabricated milling machines and sometimes pound by using pestle and mortal as crude ways of processing. They further noted that marketing of such products is always poorly achieved because such are poorly packaged; branded; labelled and categorized for marketing purposes. Okpara (2013) also emphasized that distribution of rice products at marketing level is always faced with serious hurdles due to poor transportation system as a result of poor feeder roads, poor vehicular availability to move or transport products to markets as well as high cost of transporting products from one point to another.

Bidemi and Clement (2017) stressed that the slow paced production, processing, marketing and distribution of rice along the rice value chain by actors could only be enhanced by enforcing capacity building of rice value chain actors through effective awareness creation on improved practices and vigorous training by extension agents and other relevant agencies. There is no doubt as clearly stated by Mutimba (2010) that utilization of good practices, awareness creation on improved practices, capacity building of rice value chain actors through effective training with regards to production, processing, marketing and distribution of rice is important. Those value chain activities do not only ameliorate rice value chain actors’ poverty but tremendously ensure food security of the country at large.