Gender Analysis on Decision-Making Roles among Maize Farming Households in Agricultural Zone C of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract— This study analysed the decision-making role among maize farming households in Agricultural Zone of Kogi state, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 160 households from which the male and female heads were interviewed. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics and decision-making index. The mean age of male respondents was about 40 years while that of female respondents was about 33 years. Average income of male farmers was N147,321.90 while that of female farmers was N143,475.0. The average household size of the respondents was approximately 8 persons. The mean years of experience of male respondents was 16 years while that of the females was 10 years. It was observed that majority (95.9%) of the households depended on inherited land. Male respondents were more dominant in tertiary education than female respondents. The average DMI over all activities was 0.5 meaning that women on the overall were dominated by their men counterparts in terms of decision-making. It was recommended that the female gender must be more involved in households’ decision-making as their insights and perspectives can lead to higher productivity. Most constraints identified bothers around institutional and infrastructural inadequacies in Nigeria’s rurality therefore better extension service provision should be provided to the rural farmers, higher access to credits and provision of more access roads in rural areas.