Methodology and problems of farm management investigations, experiences from northern Nigeria

The RERU surveys have been designed to provide quantitative micro-data on rural areas in northern Nigeria for government planners and policy-makers. Norman describes extensively the methodology used to select areas, villages, and farms for investigation. He summarizes his "frequent interviewing approach" and the types of data which RERU has thereby collected. He considers the organizational problems of (a) village representativeness, (b) securing village cooperation, and (c) selecting and training enumerators. He explores the RERU experience with data collection and describes the way RERU has resolved problems of choice of survey period, effects of seasonal variation, collection of data by field and plot, estimation of time, distance, area, quantities of inputs and crop yield, and problems associated with missing data, sensitive data, and data accuracy.