Abstract

This study was conducted at Lake Gerio irrigation project situated at the north western part of Jimeta/Yola, North-Eastern Nigeria. It lies between longitude 12^â—¦ and 12^â—¦ 28’ east of Greenwich and Latitude 9^â—¦16’ and 9^â—¦19’ North of the equator. The objective of the study was to examine the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of irrigated rice production. The respondents interviewed were selected using a simple random sampling and purposive sampling techniques proportional to the size of farm. The results obtained shows that five variables have significantly influenced adoption of rice production. These are farming experience, household size, gender, market availability and labour availability. The result of logit regression model shows a statistical significance    (P < 0.01) of the X_1. It indicates that holding other variables constant, if years of experience increase by a unit, on the average, the logit of the odds in favour of sole rice production increases by 5.33 units. Other variables such as level of education influence adoption as it eases understanding, interpretation and acceptance of the newly introduced techniques. These will enhance purchasing power of materials inputs, like fertilizer, pesticides, improve seeds. Gender also plays a significant role since male genders are more likely to adopt innovation than the female, probably due to the arduous nature of rice production in the project than the female counterparts.

Key words: Influence, rice, adoption, food security, farmers, factors.