Despite increasing land cultivation for rice production in Nigeria, the gap between supply of and demand for this produce is still wide. The use of improved rice varieties has been identified as one of the ways to reduce this gap. This paper, therefore, reports an investigation of the factors influencing the adoption intensity of improved rice varieties in Ekiti State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used for sample selection. A cross-sectional data were collected from 160 rice farming households using a well-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and Double-hurdle model were used for data analysis. Results show that the mean age of the respondents was 46 years. Estimates from the Double-hurdle model reveal that adoption of improved rice varieties increased with years of education, farm size, contact with extension agents and time of planting. Results further show that intensity of adoption significantly increased with male farmers, years of residence and distance to source of input but decreased with contact with extension agent and time of planting. This paper argues that the factors that influence adoption decision and adoption intensity are not necessarily the same. Therefore a closer look should be paid to the two when introducing new technology to farmers.

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