CHAPTER ONEIntroduction

1.1Background
The Nigerian Economy has gone through many years of vicissitude especially on her agriculturalsector. As at 2012, the total contribution of agricultural sector to GDP was estimated to about 33.1%:and 89.2% of this share is owned by crop production followed by livestock 6.4%, fishing 3.2% andforestry 1.2% (NBS, 2013). The agricultural sector generates less than 5% to foreign exchange eamiagswhile the external sector (dominated by the petroleum sector) generating about 95% of foreignexchange earnings and over 80% budgetary revenue. Nigeria is confronted with challenges ofdiversifying the structure of the economy to lesser dependence on the oil sector. China's development inthe agricultural sector has been a huge wake-up call to other developing countries. The Chineseagricultural system is characterized to have a long history of development in technologies associatedwith seed development, fertilizer, water control and land preparation. China's agricultural productionc妨 be said to operate on a high-yield and relatively high use of labour, fertilizer and otheragrochetnicals. In terms of rice production, both in quantities and value，China ranks first in the worldas compared to Nigeria the seventeenth (FAOSTAT, 2012). Rice is said to be equivalent with foodsecurity in most developing countries especially in Asia and now with increasing attention towardsAfrica. Rice production affects over 3.5 billion people in the world, providing nutrient and income tothe populace. Beside the food and economic importance of rice，it is also used for thatching, industrialstarch, and artwork.
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1.2 Rice Economy
The importance of rice to the world cannot be overemphasized, food security-wise or productionand income-wise. The largest rice consuming regions in the world are in Asia and Africa. Rice hasbecome the fastest staple food in Africa providing daily carbohydrate, vitamins and some minerals mostespecially in Nigeria (the largest rice consumer in Africa). Nigeria have a diversified agro-ecologicalproduction systems which support large collection of staple food, the major including maize，millet,sorghum, rice, cassava, yam, cocoyam, sweet potato, wheat, plantain (FAO, 2012) among which ricehas emerged as the fastest growing subsector staple food，especially for the urban dwellers. Prior to1960 in Nigeria, rice was considered a luxurious food and consumed by few. Its' features of fast andeasy-to-cook has given it stronger advantage over other staple crops. Over the years, rice presents in theNigerian dietary has been increasing since the early 1970s and 1980s. Figure 1-1 depicts the decadalincreases of rice food as a percentage to Nigerian's diet.
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CHAPTER TWOConceptual Framework and Literature Review

2.1 Conceptual Framework
Production may be defined as an economic process that uses resources to createcommodities/goods that is suitable for exchange. These economic processes could includemanufacturing, storing, shipping, packaging etc(Cobb and Douglas 1928; Metcalfe et' al 2003). Someeconomists (Veneziani and Yoshihara, 2011;Mundlak 1961; Humphrey 1997) define productionbroadly as all economic or managerial activities other than consumption. They see every commercialactivity other than the final purchase as some form of production. An efficient production would involvethe use of the little available resources (input) to produce a maximum output which reduces waste,production function can provide measures to limiting these waste.The measurement of the volume of output is the attempt to measure the changes in the amount ofinputs use to achieve the output and to determine the relationships that exist between the output andinputs (Cobb and Douglas, 1928). Production function has been used as an important tool of economicanalysis in the neoclassical tradition (Mishra 2007) to measure production variables. Two concepts areassociated with the efficiency of production system; technical efficiency and allocative efficiency(Libenstein et' aL, 1988). One of the assumptions of production function is that the problem of technicalefficiency has already been resolved thus analysis concentrates on the problems of allocative efficiency.According to Mishra (2007), the above is the reason for the definition of production function as"relationship between the maximum technically feasible output and input..." In the words ofKoutsoyiaimis (2003), “production function is a purely technical relation which connects factor inputand output". He added that it includes all the technically efficient methods of production.
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2.2 Policy Review
This section of chapter two discusses; on national level, the rice yield, and the previous andrecent policies affecting the rice sector in Nigeria and China. The Success and difficulties during thetransitional processes of the rice subsectors as well as some future concerns were fiirther conversed inthis section. The aim here is to glimpse how the two nations' rice system operates to better understandand explain the outcomes in the proceeding chapters.Rice in Nigeria as described by several researchers is a strategic commodity. As the supply-demand gap continue to increase，making the nation one of the largest rice importers in the world. Thegovernment has been actively interfering in the sector via policy measures. The primary goal of theNigerian rice policies has been to increase domestic production and achieving self-sufficiency (FMARD2004). These interventions have come in different forms, lengths and rates, examples include subsidies,tariff, quota, ban and quantity restriction through license. Godwin et al (2001); Akande, (2002);Ogundele and Okoruwa (2006) discussed Nigeria's rice policy on three folds namely Pre-ban period (i.e.1970-1985), the Ban period (1986-1995) and the Post-ban period (1995-date).
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CHAPTER THREE Methodology..........35
3.1 Description of the study areas.........35
3.1.1 Niger State, Nigeria.........35
3.1.2 Hainan Province, China.........37
3.2 Selection procedure and sample size.........39
3.3 Questionnaire Development.........39
3.4 Data processing and analysis.........40
CHAPTER FOUR Result and Discussion: Part I.........44
4.1 Household Demography.........44
4.2 Cultivated Area.........46
4.3 Seed System.........50
4.4 Fertilizer Usage.........53
4.5 Rice Yield.........54
4.6 Commercial Level of the Farmers.........56
4.7 Perception Analysis of Production Constraints.........60
4.8 Production Function Analysis.........72

CHAPTER FOURResult and Discussion: Part I

This part of chapter four presents the descriptive statistics of the two study areas. From thestatistical analysis, the household characteristics, cultivated area, type of seed used, fertilizer used andthe yield of rice obtained are compared between Niger state and Hainan province and finally，a briefdescription of the commercialization level in the two regions are discussed. Figures and tables are usedto capture the differences.In rural areas especially the poor farmers, rice production system is more of labour intensive andthus requires a lot of strength and energy for land preparation, tilling, weeding (in some cases but othercases they apply herbicides) Mid harvesting. Household labour becomes an important medium toreducing cost of production. Ceteris paribus the greater the household size the lesser the labour hired. Itshould be noted that the higher size of household does not always translate higher household labourbecause in some cases the siblings are be too young to work on farm or they go to school. In anothercase, some members of Ihe family may have other jobs thus does not participate farming activities. Thehousehold usually comprises of the head, the spouse, children and other relative as a form of extendedfamily. The above table shows that the household size in Niger state rice farmers (10.7) almost doubledthat of Hainan farmers (5.4), despite this difference, relative to cultivated area Hainan has greater ratiothan Niger state. In both Niger state and Hainan province, majority of the household (91.5% and 67.8%respectively) have more than 5 family members. However, Niger state has the least number ofrespondents that have family size less than 5 members.

conclusion

In most developing countries, investment on R&D of agriculture by the government has not beenadequate but recently there are series of increased investment on agricultural R&D. In view of the 2012presidential initiative on Agricultural Transformation Action Plan (Nigeria), the increase in investmenton planting area, organizing farmers in categories, restructuring the distribution of inputs and research isa way forward but Increase in land area to resolve production 一 consumption gap can only be of a short-term solution. It is obvious that the rice system suffers management problem where essential inputs areinadequate resulting to low yield. This study recommends policies to stabilize the supply of essentialinputs by directly investing in those inputs that improve yield via seed technology, readily provision offertilizer and credit facility to the farmers. Increasing the production capacity of these essential inputscan go a long ways to improving the availability and access of these inputs to the farmers. This will alsoreduce the cost of importing such product and create employment domestically. To effectivelyaccomplish this, a readily suitable environment (especially the issue on electricity) should be set for theprivate sector participation.
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References (omitted)