Rural Land Market and Commercialization Among Crop Farming Households In Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Nigeria is experiencing a gradual shift from subsistence to commercialized agriculture. However, land holding is becoming smaller and unable to sustain commercialization among farmers adequately. This study therefore assessed the potential of land markets to improve the access of crop farming households in southwestern Nigeria to land and the resultant effect on crop commercialization. Data were generated, with the aid of structured questionnaire, from a survey conducted on a sample of 350 crop farming households obtained from a multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics, land market index, crop commercialization index and tobit regression model were used for data analysis. Findings show that majority (74%) of the farmers acquired their farm plots through inheritance and was substantiated by a result of land market index of 0, while purchase (48.3%) and rent (48.3%) were the most patronized form of land acquisition through transaction. The crop driving commercialization in the study area is maize, with crop commercialization index of 72%. Results further show that participation in land market had significant positive effect on crop commercialization, with the crop commercialization index for farming households participating in land market expected to be 0.05 higher than that of the farming households which are not participating. It is concluded that crop commercialization increases with participation in land market and therefore, there should be formulation of policies which will give room for flexibility in land redistribution that will make farmers have better access to land.