Profitability of Usage of Sawah Rice Technology Among Small Scale Farmers in Kebbi State, Nigeria

Background and Objective: Currently, Nigeria is not self-sufficient in rice production, but has the potential to produce more for domestic consumption and even export, for the states to be self-reliant in rice production farmers need to find a way to improve on the average yield per hectare. Therefore, the profitability of usage of Sawah rice technology in Kebbi State Nigeria was investigated. Materials and Methods: Well-structured questionnaire was used to obtain cross-sectional data from small scale rice farmers that utilize Sawah rice technology in Kebbi State, Nigeria in the 2021 cropping season using multistage sampling procedures. A list of rice farmers was obtained and a total of three hundred respondents were sampled. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis and the logit model. Results: It revealed that the usage of Sawah technology was widespread among rice farmers, the total returns of ₦487,381.60/ha were generated through the usage of Sawah rice technology, the logistic regression model revealed that age (t = 3.26; p = 0.001), no. of plots of land in separate places (t = 2.03; p = 0.0042), farming experience (t = 1.76; p = 0.079) and membership of farmers association (t = 1.66; p = 0.096) were variables that significantly influenced the usage of Sawah rice technologies among rice farmers in Kebbi State. Conclusion: It was concluded that the technology is profitable in the study area and there is a need to address the problem of limited land access due to the nature of the land tenure system to facilitate large-scale production to take advantage of the economy of scale.