Demography and Socio-Economic Aspects on Irrigated Smallholder Agricultural Enterprises and Their Association with the Cultivation of Maize (<i>Zea m</i><i>ays </i>L.) as a Selected Field Crop

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to correlate demography and socio-economic aspects at Irrigated Smallholder Agricultural Enterprises and their association with the Cultivation of Maize in order to determine its positive impacts at irrigated smallholders’ agricultural entrepreneurs’ household. Chi-square test was used as descriptive analysis method. The Fischer Exact tests were employed to test demography (gender, age, education, and income) in winter and summer production season of irrigated smallholder agricultural enterprises and their association with the cultivation of selected field crop (i.e. maize). The results show that gender results were not being statistically significant, as measured by the Phi measure of effect size, φ = 0.149, p = 0.011, and φ = 0.05, p = 0.392 in summer. As far as age is concern, it appears to be a statistically significant association between cultivating maize and age in winter, φ = 0.046, p = 0.730 in winter and φ = 0.172, p = 0.013. Education winter result not being statistically significant, the effect size showed a weak association, as measured by the Phi measure of effect size, φ = 0.112, p = 0.305 and φ = 0.035, p = 0.948 in summer. Income result not being statistically significant, as measured by the Phi measure of effect size, φ = 0.049, p = 0.399 and φ = 0.081, p = 0.166 in summer. In conclusion, the study shows that the development of best management practices must be based on a comprehensive analysis of the livelihoods and irrigated smallholder agricultural enterprise farming styles of participating irrigated smallholder agricultural entrepreneurs.