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

415Results and DiscussionCost elements in the community seed productionLand. Except in one farm, land used for the community seed productionproject was owned by the farmers and, therefore, had no fi nancialcost. For the exceptional case, the land used by the farmer wasrented and its rental rate was used in the analysis. The rate was alsoassumed to represent the opportunity cost of the land used by theother farmers.Fertilizer. On average, the seven farmers applied about 8 bags offertilizer, which included NPK for basal application and urea fortopdressing. The fertilizer was estimated to cost N18,557.Labor. Sources of farm labor in the communities were the family andhired labor. For the project, most of the participants used both sources;therefore, the actual cost of labor (hired labor plus shadow wages for familylabor) were used in the analysis, which, on average, was N10,496.Herbicides. Herbicides were used to minimise the level of weedinfestation and number of weedings done in the farm. In this projectonly one farmer applied herbicides. The actual amount spent topurchase the chemical and for spraying was used in the analysis.On average, the total cost of production (total variable costs plusexplicit costs) was N33,770/ha when herbicides were used and N28,750/ha for those who used hoe weeding for the production (Table 1).Seed and grain yields from community seed productionFields of farmers who followed the agronomic practices and met therequired isolation distance were harvested for seed; the others wereconsidered as grain. Furthermore, harvests from water-logged fi elds,plants used to supply missing stands, and those at edge rows weretaken as grain. The seed and grain yields are shown in Table 2. Froma total of 4.5 ha of the seed farm planted to Obatanpa GH in the year,10.62 t of seed and 3.195 t of grain were produced. Table 3 showsthe returns made from the seed and grain production by seven of thefarmers who participated in Obatanpa GH production in Daudawa(farmers 1–7). The average gross income from seed was N115, 320and that from grain was N16, 967/ha.