An Assessment of the Extent of the Commercialization of Agriculture in Abia State, Nigeria

The study was conducted to assess the extent of commercialization of agriculture in Abia State. The study covered 6 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the state, two each from each of the three zones in the state. Data were collected from 120 households spread across 24 communities through a structured questionnaire. Data were collected over a 5-month period covering household characteristics food frequency and household coping strategies. Three concepts of commercialization were defined and used in categorizing and analyzing data. Results show that agriculture is not subsistence- oriented in terms of value of agricultural produce that is for market. Households were market-oriented in consumption as only 28.5% of the value of household consumption is from own-production. Households that are most subsistence oriented earned less in terms off- farm income compared to those that were least- subsistence oriented who earned more off-farm income given the commercialization index. The study recommends rapid development of rural finance systems because access to rural financial institution at low overhead costs will enable benefits of commercialization to spread widely across the community.