Demand-Driven Technologies for Sustainable Maize ... - IITA

116Figure 1. Trend of land area cultivated to maize in Nigeria, 1984–2000.There has been a dramatic increase in the land area under maizein the northern Guinea savanna (Fakorede et al. 1993), which maynow be described as the Corn Belt of Nigeria. Availability of fertilizersat affordable prices generally determines the increase in land areaunder maize production in any particular year. Thus, areas cultivatedto maize decrease as fertilizer subsidies are withdrawn. When fertilizerswere not readily available, the land put to maize was reduced becausemaize production depends on availability of fertilizers.The trends for grain yield and production were similar to thoseof land area (Fig. 2). Average annual increase in total production wasmuch higher than the annual increase in yield.The average maize grain yield increased from 0.9 t/ha in 1980to about 1.3 t/ha in 2001, an annual increase of 0.02 t/ha. Between1980 and 2001, land area under maize increased signifi cantly up to440% (Fakorede et al. 2003).Maize is rapidly being adopted in many marginal areas becauseof availability of early and extra-early maturing varieties. Grain yieldhas shown signifi cant linear increases as a result of adoption of theimproved technologies. Collaborative efforts in RUVTs, on-farmdemonstrations, capacity building, exchange of ideas and technicalexperience of NARIs and international scientists, and promotion ofcommunity-based seed production have all contributed to the increasedmaize output (Fakorede et al. 2003). According to these researchers,estimated annual growth rate in maize production was 2.76%, whichis lower than the 3.20% projected to meet local demands (Shaib et al.1997). Despite the increase in production, the demand for maize ishigher than even the target set for the attainment of selfsuffi ciency inthe country (Fig. 3). In order for Nigeria to be selfsuffi cient in maize