Small farmers are one of the more disadvantaged and vulnerable groups in Nigeria. Studies
shown that majority of people living in absolute poverty can be found on small farms with
half in this group undernourished and three-quarters of small farmer’s children malnourished.
Small farms still dominate agricultural practices in terms of numbers of producers of
agricultural commodities. It has been observed that, 74.5% Nigerians population is rural and
derived their livelihood from small farms. The question is that these small farms are they
going to be a prospering farms or vice-versa? This is the rationale behind this study.
Specifically the study looks into heterogeneity in circumstances and diversity in rural
livelihoods, the growth of small farms, poverty levels and institutional development facilities
available for them was all explore. The index of heterogeneity at 29.1 indicated growth of
small farms and about 42% of the respondents were categorized as very poor. The study
identified that smallness of farms is not correlated to poverty but the traditionally tried and
sometimes fool-proof farming systems. Size of the farms is not the problem, but the
operationalization. Evidence from China and India revealed that smallholders are better off in
times of productivity. These countries are better in terms of fertilizer consumption, tractor per
100 sq. Km of arable land use and agriculture value added per worker. Conversely, small
holder and traditional farmers in Nigeria still use rudimentary production techniques, limited
use of improved planting materials and fertilizer consumption, thus suggesting for
commercialization of small farms