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Agriculture had been the main-stay of Nigerian economy before the ‘oil-boom’. Upon the discovery
of oil, lesser attention has been given to the agricultural sector. As a result, this paper considered
the production of certain important food crops which are highly cultivated by various states of the
federation over a period of 1994/95-2005/06. The data layout is identical to that of the RCBD so
that ANOVA technique was used to check variability in production and farm gate price for different
states and harvesting seasons. A post mortem analytic technique namely the DMRT was also used
to check for particular significance.
Keywords : Production, farm gate price, RCBD-Randomized Complete Block Design, ANOVA-
Analysis of Variance, DMRT-Duncan Multiple Range Test
INTRODUCTION time, the food sub-sector was stagnating and the
decline covered the whole agricultural sector. Thus,
Food is any substance, usually composed of
for much of the period from about 1970, agriculture
carbohydrates, fats, proteins and water, that can be
has been unable to spear-head the development of
eaten or drunk by an animal including humans, for
the Nigerian economy. Several developmental
nutrition or pleasure. Items considered food may be
programmes have been instituted to stimulate
sourced from plants and animals. Although many
agricultural development in Nigeria from the 1970s.
human cultures sought food items through hunting
These include the River Basin Development
and gathering. Today, most cultures use farming,
Authorities (RBDAS), Operation Feed the Nation
ranching and fishing with hunting, foraging and other
(OFN), the Green Revolution Programme and the
methods of a local nature included but playing a
three Agriculture Universities set up in the 1980s.
minor role. Farming, ranching and fishing play major
roles and have their roots in agriculture. Presently, agricultural production is dwindling in
respect to the ever growing population of the nation.
Nigeria is an agricultural country because its climate
Low agricultural productivity and output are due to
permits the cultivation of a variety of crops in a
factors such as limited access to input sources, the
pattern that emerged in earlier centuries in response
use of traditional technologies and ineffective
to local conditions. As in other West African
government and improvement policies. They are also
countries, rainfall is heaviest in the south, where the
due to age, educational background, non-availability
forests and savannah benefit from abundant
of land and capital for farming practices, inadequate
precipitation and relatively short dry seasons.
transportation and power networks, to mention a few.
Again, Nigeria is still essentially an agricultural Negligence on the part of government to improve the
country, inspite of the importance of petroleum in its agricultural sector is the greatest of all the problems.
economy. In 2006, for instance, agriculture’s
Also, agriculture statistics shows that the highest and
contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
lowest ranking ever of Nigeria’s food production in
was about 32.1 percent (Government of Nigeria,
the world are 71 and 156 in 1999 and 1986
2006) since about 70 percent of the approximate
respectively. Therefore, improvements are needed in
one-fifty million population was involved in
correcting the problems associated with food
agricultural production and agro-businesses.
production so that Nigeria can be ranked among the
Agriculture used to be the prime mover of the highest food producers in the world.
Nigerian economy especially up to 1970s before
petroleum became important. Agricultural experts
drove the economy forward. However, even at that
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2013, 4(3): 257-260
MATERIALS AND METHODS the crops are not significantly different for each state
and farming seasons.
Data: A data of cassava and maize production
(metric tonnes) was obtained for producing states in where
farming seasons 1994/95-2005/06. Also data of farm
b number of replicates ( Blocks )
gate prices of the two crops was also obtained. The
two crops are considered since they are cultivated in t number of treatments
virtually all the states of the federation due to their
high economic importance and high resistance to SS BLOCK
i
2
CF
harsh climatic conditions. The data (on production) t
layout constitute a Randomized Complete Block
Design (RCBD) where the states represent the SS ERROR
2
CF
j
Yij individual observation for the jth treatment in the ith block
general mean
j effect of the jth treatment
ij exp eriment error
Hypotheses: The null hypothesis are such that the
successive production rate and farm gate prices of
Analysis of Variance Table
Sources of Variation Degree of Freedom Sum of Squares Mean Squares Fratio
Blocks b 1 SS BLOCK SS BLOCK MS BLOCK
MS
b 1
BLK
MS ERROR
Treatments t 1 SS TRETMENT SS MSTRT
MS TRT TRT
t 1 MS ERROR
Error (b 1)(t 1) SS ERROR SS ERROR
MS ERROR
(b 1)(t 1)
Total bt 1 SS TOTAL
RESULTS
The results of are presented in the following ANOVA tables.
ANOVA TABLE I ON FARM GATE PRICE OF CASSAVA
Source D.f SS MS Fcal Pr >F Decision
258
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2013, 4(3): 257-260
259
Am. J. Sci. Ind. Res., 2013, 4(3): 257-260
260