ABSTRACT:

This study was conducted to examine income diversification profile and its determinant among wet season smallholder rice Farmers in Jigawa State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling techniques consisting purposive and random sampling were used in selecting 292 wet season smallholder rice Farmers who were interviewed using structured questionnaires by trained enumerators. The analytical tools employed include descriptive statistic, Mean income share index, Simpson diversification index and censored Torbic regression models. The result shows that that 96.9% of the farmers were males with a mean age of 40 years. Mean household size was 12 persons. Wet season rice production was the major occupation for the farmers with most of them having average farm size of 2 hectares. Income from rainfed rice production which is mainly subsistence in nature and is the most basic farm income, providing about 56.4% of total farming household income and Income from livestock rearing contribute about 17.2% of the total income. The result of SID of the farming household shows that 51.6% had high income diversity and 48.4% had low income diversity scores. Variable that were found to be significant in influencing income diversification include income from rice production, access to credit, Vocational training and access to improve input index. It is therefore recommended that since the study observed that level of diversification increase as access to improve farming input and farm equipment increase, therefore there is need by the stakeholders to facilitate easy accessibility to improve seed, fertilizer, agro chemicals and other farm equipment such as tractors, mechanical traction. This can be accomplished with the support and cooperation of Government, NGOs and other development partners particularly in rural areas.