ECONOMICS OF FADAMA RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA, NIGERIA

The study investigated the economics of fadama resource management practices in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja through the National Fadama Development Project. Proportionate and random sampling techniques were utilized to select 80 farmers that constituted the respondents for the study. Data for the study were collected by the researcher with the help of two well trained research assistants. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. From the data analysed, the study found out that majority (56%) of the farmers fall within 36-50 years age bracket while the average age of the farmers is 51 years. Majority (71%) of the farmers were married. About 77% of the farmers had formal education ranging from primary school to tertiary education while the remaining 23% of the farmers had no formal education. The average years of experience of the farmers in the area is about 35years with majority (65%) of the farmers being males while 35% were females. The average farm household size in the study area is 8 persons. Majority (60%) of the farmers owned the lands they used for farm practices while 40% of the farmers acquire their farm lands through lease and purchase. Out of the 16 identified soil management practices, only 7 were utilized while the remaining 9 were not utilized for soil management by the farmers. For water management practices, only 3 out of the 9 identified management practices were utilized while the remaining 6 were not utilized. Out of the 7 identified vegetation management practices, only 2 were utilized by the farmers while the remaining 5 were not utilized. The results of the partial budgeting shows that the Net-benefits of organic/inorganic manuring, irrigation, digging well and construction of barrier for erosion control were N348,163.00, N345,330.00, N68,336.00, N63.091.00 respectively. The use of manuring for soil management has the highest Net-benefit of N348,163.00 relative to other resource management practices. The profitability indices for the fadama resource management practices were 5.16 for manuring, 6.46 for irrigation, 4.45 for digging well for farm operations and 5.10 for construction of erosion barriers. Irrigation practice has the highest profitability index of 6.46. The result of the regression analysis shows that the linear functional form had the best fit, based on the values of R2 (0.95), the levels and number of significant explanatory variables and their signs. The F-value of (247.089) indicated that the overall equation was significant at (p