Economic Advantage of Hybrid Maize over Open-Pollinated Maize in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State

Abstract

This research intends to carry out a comparative study, on the yield of hybrid and open-pollinated maize, with the involvement of farmers in Giwa local government area of Kaduna state. Specifically, it evaluated existing hybrid and open-pollinated maize production technologies by unfolding their most important socio-economic factors, by notably identifying the beneficial distinction between hybrid and open-pollinated maize, with the farm survey data collected from 160 maize farming communities in October-December 2009 for the cropping year 2009-10. Descriptive Statistics; Gross-Margin Analysis were the analytical tools employed for achieving the aim of this study. The average yield per hectare obtained by hybrid maize farmers was 2240.6Kg and 1261.04Kg for open pollinated maize respectively. Hybrid maize and open pollinated maize farmers obtained gross margin US$ 389.29 and US$195.31 per hectare respectively. Z-test was used to test the profitability of hybrid maize versus open-pollinated maize and the result revealed that hybrid maize production was more profitable and the difference was statistically significant at 1% level of significance. As most of the communities had no formal education, the extension program should be targeted to the less educated farmers. This study recommends that credit capability principally the process for obtaining loan ought to be made easy to perk up hybrid and open-pollinated maize production in the study area.