Principal Component Analysis of Production Constraints of Smallholder Arable Crop Farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study attempted to analyse the production constraints of smallholder arable crop farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to sample a total of 261 arable crop farmers in the state. Primary data were elicited from the farmers with the aid of structured questionnaire that was complemented with interview schedule. Data analysis was done with descriptive statistics and principal component model. The result showed that an average crop farmer was 51 years old, had household size of 8 persons and 10years of formal education. 91.57% of the farmers were male and 86.21% were married. The principal component analysis revealed that the major constraints of the farmers were economic and socio-cultural, institutional, environmental and infrastructural factors which explained 53.06% of the variance in the 13 constraining variable components. It was concluded that the arable crop farmers in Kwara State are faced with several production constraints which poses great threat to their productivity and this calls for urgent intervention and remedy.