Turning Maize Waste Into Opportunity: The Support Nigeria’s Smallholder Farmers Need

The research covered 450 smallholder maize farmers across 48 communities in Southwest Nigeria’s six states: Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo. Interviews and focus groups involved 72 farmers, bringing everyday experiences into an analysis of adoption patterns and institutional support.

A maize stalk can become animal feed, manure can return nutrients to the soil, and organic waste can provide energy, giving farmers more value from resources they already have. Making these practices affordable and dependable takes more than resourcefulness, especially for households facing unpredictable rain, expensive inputs, and patchy government support.

The study "Circular Economy and Climate Resilience: Implications for Governance, Adaptation Strategies, and Economic Inclusion of Smallholder Farmers in Nigeria," published in Sustainability, explores these connections. Researchers Adetomiwa Kolapo and Isaac Busayo Oluwatayo examined how public institutions, household resources, and climate conditions shape farmers' adoption of practices that turn agricultural waste into useful resources.

1. Farmers Are Giving Waste a Second Life

The research covered 450 smallholder maize farmers across 48 communities in Southwest Nigeria's six states: Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, and Oyo. Interviews and focus groups involved 72 farmers, bringing everyday experiences into an analysis of adoption patterns and institutional support.

Three practices formed the core of the investigation: recycling crop residues, making organic compost, and converting waste into energy. The researchers used a statistical model that examined these decisions together and attempted to account for the possibility that farmers' experiences of governance both influence and reflect their adoption choices.

Organic composting was the most common practice, adopted by 67% of respondents, followed by residue recycling at 56% and waste-to-energy at 31%. Composting and residue reuse can draw on locally available materials; energy systems often require equipment, technical knowledge, and greater investment.

Farmers described feeding maize stalks to livestock and returning manure to their fields, using familiar practices to stretch household resources. Their reasons were practical: commercial fertilizer costs money, usable materials are available nearby, and maintaining productive soil matters to their survival.

The circular economy gives a name to this approach of keeping resources useful through reuse, recycling, and recovery.

2. Clear Information and Fair Support Shape Adoption

The researchers assessed governance through five dimensions: transparency, farmer participation, enforcement, coordination, and service delivery. The overall Governance Quality Index averaged 0.439 on a scale from zero to one, indicating substantial room for improvement.

Enforcement received the lowest average score, at 0.346, and service delivery scored highest, at 0.503. Experiences varied considerably between farmers, suggesting that access to dependable institutions was uneven.

Each dimension had a different connection with adoption: Transparency had its strongest relationship with residue recycling, participation with composting, and enforcement with waste-to-energy. Coordination and service delivery supported several practices and combinations of practices.

Accessible information helps farmers understand available support and recycling options; participation creates opportunities to share knowledge, materials, and labour; consistent rules can give households and investors greater confidence in technologies requiring substantial spending.

The study's additional analysis grouped governance into three broad themes: openness and accountability, collaboration, and effective implementation. These themes connect public promises with farmers' ability to use them.

Interview accounts revealed frustration with assistance that reportedly failed to reach intended beneficiaries, fertilizer diverted for sale, and agricultural advisers whose visits were infrequent or offered limited help. Around 73% of survey respondents reported access to extension services, a figure that does not establish whether the advice was useful, timely, or sufficient.

3. Climate Pressure and Unequal Access Limit What Farmers Can Do

The average farm covered about 1.87 hectares, leaving many households with limited land and resources for investment. Roughly 79% of respondents reported access to credit, with an average amount obtained of approximately ₦12,325, which the researchers considered too modest for substantial investment in equipment-intensive technologies.

Farm size, farming experience, and association membership were positively linked with adoption in the reported results. Education showed positive relationships with combinations of practices. The authors discuss higher income as an enabling resource and larger households' immediate consumption needs as a possible constraint, pointing to the difficulty of investing in future benefits when current needs are pressing.

Women and younger farmers described barriers to land, loans, inputs, and decision-making. Some women formed savings groups to purchase supplies together, creating opportunities through collective effort. A transition that mainly benefits households with more land, money, and influence could deepen existing inequalities.

Only about 45% of farmers reported access to climate information, and approximately 33% had irrigation access. Interview participants described unreliable rainfall, prolonged dry spells, and pest problems, with responses including intercropping, crop diversification, mulching, and small rainwater-storage ponds.

Recycling depends on having materials to recycle, making crop failures a concern for compost and energy systems that need a dependable supply of organic matter.

The paper's discussion makes stronger claims about income, household size, rainfall, and temperature than its main regression table clearly supports. These points deserve qualified interpretation, and the study does not establish that adopting circular practices directly produced measurable improvements in yields, incomes, or climate resilience.

4. A Useful Transition Starts With Farmers' Real Needs

The researchers recommend practical training, affordable finance, farmer participation, and reliable public services, supported by clear subsidy information and coordination between agricultural advisers, lenders, and local authorities.

Cooperatives could share composting facilities and community biogas systems, spreading costs and helping farmers with limited resources access equipment. Combining residue reuse, composting, and energy recovery would connect recycling with everyday farming needs.

Credit designed for women, accessible training, literacy support, and opportunities for younger farmers would broaden participation. Fair enforcement and simpler administrative processes could give farmers confidence to invest. Water harvesting, small-scale irrigation, drought insurance, and suitable crop varieties remain essential because recycling cannot prevent every loss from drought or heat.

Farmers linked expensive inputs and uncertain markets to international disruptions, describing limited local benefits from global sustainability discussions. Recovering resources locally could reduce dependence on purchased inputs, and climate finance should reach smallholder households.

The study captures one survey period in Southwest Nigeria, restricting conclusions about cause and effect, changes over time, and other regions. Follow-up research should track households and examine gender differences more closely. Farmers already reusing stalks, manure, and discarded materials need knowledge, funding, fair treatment, and dependable support to expand these practices and strengthen their livelihoods.