COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CO-OPERATIVE AND NON- COPERATIVE MAIZE FARMERS IN CHIKUN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, KADUNA STATE

Abstract

The desire of the Federal Government of Nigeria is to use farmers’ cooperatives to achieve increased production of food, income and more equitable distribution of such income when compared with non- participants. This study therefore examined comparative analysis of co-operative and non –co-operative maize farmers in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State. Primary data were obtained using structured questionnaires administered to 54 cooperators and 58 non-cooperators (20% of sampled respondents respectively). Descriptive statistics, Gross Margin and Z- test analysis were used for the analysis of data. The result showed that maize-based crop mixtures were more profitable for co-operative farmers with Gross margin of N 34, 482 and N26, 818/ha respectively when both family and hired labour were costed. It was therefore recommended that in order to reduce cost of production, farm machineries, fertilizers and improved seed varieties need to be made available to farmers at affordable prices. However, the calculated z- test indicated that there was no significant difference between profit of co-operative farmers and non- cooperative farmers.