Efficiency of Resource Use in Hybrid and Open-Pollinated Maize Production in Giwa Lga of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Absttract: Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important cereal crop in Nigerian agriculture. The crop occupies a crucial place than other cereal crops since it is used as food, feed, fodder and other industrial raw material. The aim of this study was to conduct a comparative study, on the productivity of hybrid and open-pollinated maize of farmers in Giwa local government area of Kaduna State. Precisely, it will evaluate current hybrid and open-pollinated maize production technologies by describing their major socio-economic factors and most importantly identifying the economic difference between hybrid and open-pollinated maize, using the farm survey data collected from 160 maize farming communities in OctoberDecember 2009 for the cropping year 2009-10. The result of analysis of resource use efficiency of hybrid and open-pollinated maize shows that all resources were inefficiently utilized because the ratios were not equal to one. The ratio indicated that sampled farmers underutilized fertilizer and insecticides. The efficiency ratio for seeds, labour and herbicides were less than one showing that the sampled farmers over-utilized seeds, labour and herbicides on the farms. This study suggests the need to bring more area under hybrid maize cultivation. Furthermore, there is need for special training, seminars, field demonstrations and technical support for the maize farmers. As most of the communities had no formal education, the extension program should be intended to the less educated farmers. In addition, the credit facility particularly the procedure for loan should be made simple to improve hybrid and open-pollinated maize production in the study area.


INTRODUCTION
solar radiation received in the northern part of the country More than a quarter of a billion Africans depend on crop has led to the increasingly importance and expansion maize as their staple food, often eating a quarter kilo or of maize production in this zone [3][4][5]. In Nigeria, many more of maize and maize products every day. Any researchers have found improved production technology interference to make maize available, either at the farm to be a major factor in effort to become self-sufficient in level or to the markets, has negative cost for the most maize production [6]. vulnerable farmers [1]. Irregular rainfall, persistent drought Production of hybrid maize simply put, are the result and loss of soil fertility have all made the maize harvests of crossing two different breeding lines. They represent in Africa vague. At the moment, several farm families the first generation originating from the cross (F1). They cannot grow sufficient food to last the year and do not differ from pure line varieties and open-pollinated varieties have income to buy food. Accepting donated food aid is in that the seed they produce will not be saved and often the only way to survive. This robs families of their replanted but the parental lines have to be crossed each dignity and restraints development [2]. time to produce new seed [7]. These breed are known to The traditional area of maize cultivation in Nigeria be early flowery, drought resistant, more vigorous and has been the south of latitude 8°N where it can be grown uniform, traits not found in the existing open-pollinated twice a year. However, it is recognized that the higher breed [8].
where it has not been traditionally grown as a popular Recently, hybrid maize production has been given MATERIALS AND METHODS extensive promotion among farmers in Nigeria. Conversely, hybrid maize is famous for its high requirement for plant nutrients and other production inputs [5]. Although, it is widely grown in many countries of the world; generally farmers have been trained with the principle that every clause, vital for utmost performance of hybrid maize, have to be satisfied to maximum capacity, prior to attainment of optimal income. Consequently, additional production cost discourages, most farmers engaging in hybrid maize production [5].
However, paying for these seeds yearly can only be profitable, according to [8] only if the important qualities needed by the farmers are found in the hybrid maize seed, since just being hybrids or illustrating heterosis (hybrid vigour) is not enough. Who further illustrated, that the price of the hybrid maize seed, ought to be low enough to assist, the farmer to make considerable profits from annual repeated investments in costly hybrid maize seed, when compared to the open-pollinated maize that can b e recycled i.e. farmers will risk venturing into improved hybrid maize production technology only when they have some guarantee of a reasonable price, as well as a reliable market for their crop. Duvick, concluded by adding that, as a rule of thumb, the first time application of hybrid maize grains, must enable the farmer receive an additional income, equal to at least three times, the added cost of procurement, of the hybrid maize grains.
Rusell, [9] made severe effort to separate, the effect of proper management of farm operations, from the use of better genetic strains (i.e the use of hybrid maize). With hybrid seed conserved from 1930 to 1970 and growing the hybrid and open-pollinated maize under the similar environment, he found a homogeneous boost in yield from the newer strains (hybrid maize), as against the heterogeneous nature of open-pollinated maize variety. He concluded that 60% or more of the improved performance was genetic. Similar result was also reported by Duvick [8]. As sighted in Crow J.F. [10].
The importance of maize as both food and cash crop has necessitated the need for this study, which is to conduct a comparative study, on the productivity o f hybrid and open-pollinated maize, of farmers in Giwa local government area of Kaduna state. Precisely, it will evaluate current hybrid and open-pollinated maize production technologies by; describing their major socio-economic factors and most importantly identifying the economic difference between hybrid and openpollinated maize.
Primary and secondary data were used for this study. The primary data were collected based on 2009 growing season using detailed structured questionnaires, with the aid of an enumerator. The interview method of data collection was used. The data collected includes: C Demographic information such as age, educational level, farm size, farming experience, number o f extension contact. C Production information on hybrid and openpollinated maize, this includes inputs used, like fertilizer and other agro-chemicals, land, seed planted, quantity of input, labour and output/yield which will be measured in kg/ha; C Finally marketing information like prices of inputs and output, quantity sold and mode of sales. C Data were also, obtained from Journals, Monogram, Published Books, which are significant to the scope of this study. The typical weather is mostly categorized b y constant dry and wet seasons. The rains begin i n April/May and stops in October, while the dry season sets in, in late October and ends in March of the subsequent year. Relative humidity varies between 20% and 40% in January and 60% and 80% in July. The mean annual high temperature also varies between 34° and 28°C. Crop cultivation is practiced in the upland and lowland (fadama areas), of Kaduna state which is essentially rain fed in upland system while in low land areas, both wet and dry season farming occurs. Upland farming is being practise by farmers in Giwa LGA which is, for the most part cereals (like millet, rice, maize and sorghum); legumes (including cowpea; groundnut and soybean).

Overview of the Study Area: This study was conducted in
There are 23 Local Government Area (LGAs) in Kaduna State, from which Giwa LGA was purposively selected because of proximity of some institutions and organizations concerned with the cultivation of hybrid and open-pollinated maize, the intense activities of seed arg r argcos Based on the list of maize farmers obtained from the Agricultural Development Programme, a multi-stage sampling procedure was applied to select 160 farmers involved in maize production. In the first stage, eight wards were purposively selected based on the intensity of maize production in the study area. The surveyed ward were Shika, Giwa, Likoro, Galadima, Yakawada, Hayin madara, Kidandan, Makarfi. Secondly, a community was also randomly selected from each of the wards. Finally, 20 maize farmers were randomly selected and interviewed from each community to make up a sample size of 160.
Production Function Analysis: Different functional forms such as square root, quadratic, the linear, the semi-log and the Cobb-Douglass production functions were used to analyse the data. The lead equation was the semi-log model. It was chosen for further analysis, to determine the production function for hybrid and open-pollinated maize production, which was used to achieve objectives two.
The c riteria that guided the choice of the lead equation were: shows that about 44% and 33% of hybrid and open-pollinated maize farmers have secondary and adult education respectively. More than 31% and over 11% of hybrid and open pollinated maize farmers have tertiary education respectively. 24% and 34% of the hybrid and open pollinated maize farmers, respectively were not visited by extension agents during the production season. The implication of this finding is that the extension programme in the study area are either understaffed or underequipped as indicated by a large percentage of the respondents that were unreached by the extension services in the study area. Open

Output-Input Relationship in Hybrid and Open-Pollinated Maize Production:
The semi-log function was chosen because it gave the most excellent fit to the data, based on its coefficient of multiple determinations, signs of the estimated coefficients and last but not the least the number of significant variables. An adjusted R value of 0.82, for 2 hybrid maize production and 0.59, for open-pollinated maize production, was reported, implying that the inputs used in maize production explained 85 % of the variation in the output of hybrid maize production and 66% for open-pollinated maize production in the study area. The numbers of significant variables were four for hybrid maize production namely farm-size (land); seeds; labour being significant at 1% levels of probability and fertilizer at 5% levels of probability. Openpollinated maize production on the other hand, also has four significance variables namely farm size (land); labour, are significant at 1% level of probability while seeds and insecticides are significant at 5% levels of probability.

Output-input Relationship in Hybrid and Open-pollinated Maize Production Using Cob-douglas Production Function
Hybrid

Marginal Physical Productivity (MPP) of Inputs in Hybrid and Open Pollinated Maize Production:
The highest MPP (597.5) was observed for fertilizer and lowest for labour (1.38) which was closely followed by land, insecticides and seeds having MPPs of 372.7, 167.5 and 3.45 respectively. However the use of herbicides has a negative impact on its output i.e for each additional increase in the unit of herbicides (-143.0) there is a decrease in the output of hybrid maize production. The MPPs values of open-pollinated maize peaked with insecticides (255.40) and were closely followed by seeds (205.21) then fertilizer (203.56). Land and labour have MPPs of 63.37 and 8.35 respectively. Herbicides (-102.0) also has a negative impact on output of open-pollinated maize. Since MPP is the addition to total product(yield) resulting from a unit increase in the use of a variable input, we can conclude that the use of hybrid maize seed gave a higher output than the open-pollinated maize seed counterpart as the additional inputs used resulted in a greater output. This confirms the test of hypothesis that says hybrid maize seed, use resources (inputs) more efficiently than open-pollinated maize seed to obtain higher yield.  Resource Use Efficiency: The resources used in the production of hybrid and open-pollinated maize were not efficiently utilized. For hybrid maize production, fertilizer and insecticides were underutilized because the ratios were greater than one (6.75 and 2.23), respectively. While the open-pollinated maize counterpart had a fertilizer and insecticides efficiency ratios of (9.70 and 14. 7), respectively. This implies that an increase in their usage may have increased the yield per hectare of maize. The reasons for underutilization could be due to the high price and scarcity of fertilizer and inadequate extension staff. The efficiency ratio of hybrid maize production, for seeds; labour and herbicides were less than one (0.51, 0.19 and -7.1) respectively. On the other hand, open-pollinated maize production has efficiency ratios of (0. 92, 0.11 and -4.5) showing that the sampled farmers over-utilized seeds, labour and herbicides on the farms. This could be inferred to be as a result of low wage rate for labour and predominant use of family labour which was abundant and usually not valued. The resource use efficiency in hybrid and open pollinated maize production in the study area was computed using equation .