Analyzing Rice Production Issues in the Niger State Area of Nigeria’s Middle Belt

Nigeria’s vast areas of land under rice cultivation did not augment self-sufficiency and that prompted a policy shift towards increased local production with some effects. From that, Niger state emerged and remains a major contributor to agricultural productivity in the country. Despite being a major hub with vast acreages and the third largest rice producing state of the nation, it is faced with several sectoral challenges impeding rice farming. Yet very little has been done over the years to assess the trends in local rice production to gauge yield potentials and develop new models for improved decision making capability. Accordingly, this paper adopted a mix-scale technique of descriptive statistics and GIS to analyse changing trends in rice production in Niger state. There is a focus on the issues, temporal profile of agricultural trends especially rice production and other crops, the factors and mapping of selected indices. The result shows that despite notable drops in the 1990s, production and land under rice for Niger state surpassed most of its neighbors in every category from 2006 through 2010. During these periods, Niger state’s land under rice cultivation increased notably as well. The GIS mapping of the trends points to dispersions and changes in land under rice cultivation and production as well as indicators located within the larger agricultural structure coupled with widespread diffusion of fertilizer use in the state. With the changes attributed to post-harvest losses and the lack of storage devices and socio-economic and miscellaneous elements from climate change to others. The paper recommended several remedies including the need for storage and bulk handling devices to open up rice markets, the design of geospatial and land information management systems and constant monitoring of ecosystems adjacent to rice farms.