Growth and Instability in Selected Cereal Crops in Benue State, Nigeria and Its Implications for Food Security

This study was carried out to determine growth rate and instability in area, output and yield of selected cereals and its implications for food security in Benue State, Nigeria from 1986 to 2012. In addition, sources of growth in output were also examined. To achieve this, exponential trend equation, Cuddy-Della Valle index (CDVI) and decomposition analysis were employed. The estimated compound growth rates for area of maize, millet, rice and sorghum were 4.3%, 9.8%, 1.8% and -2.4% respectively. Compound growth rates of output were 4.7%, 13.1%, 12.6% and 0.9% for maize, millet, rice and sorghum respectively and were significant. While compound growth rate for yield on the other hand showed growth rates of 1.8%, 2.5%, -0.8% and 3.2% for maize, millet, rice and sorghum in that order. Results for instability showed that area, output and yield of the selected cereals were unstable during the period under study owing to instability index of over 10%.

Sources of output growth for the selected cereals showed that increase in maize output was due largely to yield effect. While growth in of millet output was due to yield, area and interaction effect. Source of output growth for rice was due mainly to yield effect while increase in output of sorghum on the other hand, was due to area effect. Therefore, appropriate policy aimed at increasing the growth rates of less performing crop such as investing in agricultural research, timely supply of inputs on the use of high yielding varieties ought to be put in place to narrow the productivity gap, reduce instability, enhance availability and improve food security.