This study focuses on the assessment of artisanal tin mining productivity in Plateau State, Nigeria. The assessment is carried out in order to understand the level of productivity in place at the visited sites of work by the artisans, to identify the key constraints to on-site artisanal mining based on the views of the artisans to be able to proffer possible solution to the problem. The method of data collection was through the administration of well-structured questionnaire to fifty (50) respondents and the analysis of data acquired was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel. Findings from this study reveal that the miners were largely indifferent on the risk worthiness of artisanal mining activities despite a mine work experience of 12.1 years. Artisanal tin miners in the study area largely self – sponsor (76.0%) themselves in the mine operations, hence the discouragement to pay tax and royalty to government. Both Loto-mining and open cast methods were used as methods of mining. Assessment of operation productivity indicated that a typical artisanal tin miner work almost every day of the week (6.73 days) while they also work 11 hours per day. With 28.2kg production per week, tin mining productivity by the artisans was 4.19 kg per day. Artisanal miners’ experience (P<0.01), gender of artisan (P<0.10) and age of artisan (P<0.05) were all positively related to production output; while hours of work per day (P<0.05), marital status of artisan (P<0.05) were negatively related to artisanal mining output in the study area. The mean male production output was significantly higher than the production of female production output. Poor product pricing (68.0%), poor organized market (68.0%), issues with nearby communities (96.0%), issues with employers (56.0%) and inadequate technology (92.0%) were the notable production challenges encountered during artisanal mining.
Keywords: Productivity, Tin Mining, artisan, mining output, production output
