Determinants of farmers adoption decisions for improved pearl millet variety in Sahel savanna zone of northern Nigeria

Millet is a staple food mainly from local varieties, throughout the Sahel and in parts of the Sudan Savanna. Improved millet varieties are higher yielding and of better quality than the local varieties. This study was carried out after the Yobe State Agricultural Development Program had carried out series of extension services to assess the determinants of adoption of the improved varieties. Multistage systematic and purposive random sampling techniques were used to select 300 farmer respondents. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers while logit regression analysis was used to determine factors that affect the adoption of the technology in the study area. The result showed that household size, farm size, farming experience, maturity period of millet, yield of millet, and access to credit were positively significant in predicting the farmers’ probability of adopting improved pearl millet variety. On the other hand, distance to source of technology (improved pearl millet seeds) negatively influenced the probability of adoption. The study recommends improving the funding of the extension organizations and making concerted effort to increase the quantity and quality of human resources available if food security is to be guaranteed in the region.   Key words: Pearl millet, adoption decision, Sahel savanna, agricultural extension.