Rural-Urban Drift and Its Effects On Agricultural Labour in Yagba East Local Government Area of Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated the effects of rural-urban drift on agricultural labour supply in Yagba East Local Government area of Kogi State, Nigeria. 100 household heads were randomly sampled in the study area. The principal result of the study reveals that labour wage and household migration were the most important factors affecting the labour supply while lack of capital and inadequate labour supply ranked highest as constraints to agricultural production, the study reveals that 92.7% of the respondent in the study area have household migrants, 41.1% had between 4-6 migrants, 58.8% of the migrants were male, 68.0% were single and 76.3% of them were between the ages of 15-20 years. Hypotheses testing show that there is a positive and significant association between availability of hired labour and farmers’ labour costs(r=0.532, p= 0.000). There is also a strong and positive association between farmers labour costs and household migration (r=0.668, p= 0.000).