PRODUCTIVITY DIFFERENTIALS AMONG MAIZE-COWPEA AND SOLE- MAIZE FARMERS IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study assessed the productivity differentials among maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers in South West Nigeria. The study specifically examined the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, farm income and profitability of maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers, production efficiency of maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers, factors affecting the Technical and allocative efficiencies of maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers and constraints militating against maize-based cropping systems production in the study area. Primary data were collected through the administration of a structured questionnaire. Multistage sampling procedure was employed to select 360 respondents for the study. The analytical tools employed were descriptive statistics, budgeting analysis, econometric analysis involving stochastic frontier translog cost and production function Analyses and multiple regression model. The results of socio-economic characteristics revealed that the respondents who were maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers were in their active age with a mean age of 48years, married, with some level of formal education and mainly males (87.8% and 96.1). Farmers were small scale with a mean farm size of 1.3ha. The results of the budgeting analysis revealed that both cropping systems were profitable with gross margin of N 27,887.72 and N23, 413.68 per hectare for maize-cowpea and sole-maize production respectively. However, the gross margin per hectare for maize-cowpea was higher than that for sole-maize production. Maize-cowpea output, cost of insecticide, cost of implements, and cost of labour were positive and significant in influencing the total cost of maize-cowpea production but for sole-maize enterprise, maize output, cost of fertilizer, cost of insecticide, cost of implements and cost of labour were positively significant. Most of the interaction terms among the second order coefficients in maize-cowpea and sole-maize enterprises significantly influenced the total cost of production. Also, the results of the stochastic translog production function analysis showed that the coefficients of labour, farm size, insecticide and fertilizer had significant positive effect on the output of maize-cowpea farmers in the study area but that of seed had negative effect. For sole-maize enterprise, the coefficients of labour, farm size, seed, insecticide and fertilizer had significant positive effect on the output. Most of the interaction terms among the second order coefficients in maize-cowpea and sole-maize enterprises significantly influenced the output of the farmers. Results further showed that: age, level of education, access to credit, farm distance and land ownership were the determinants of technical inefficiency common to both maize-cowpea and sole-maize farmers in the study area. The mean technical efficiency of maize-cowpea and sole-maize were 0.847 and 0.765 respectively, allocative efficiencies were 74.8% and 67.8% respectively and economic efficiencies were 68.3% and 59.6% respectively. Maize-cowpea farmers were experiencing decreasing returns to scale while sole-maize farmers were recording increasing returns to scale. In maize-cowpea enterprise, education, years of experience and quantity of insecticide significantly affected the farmers’ technical efficiency but education; years of experience, quantity of fertilizer and insecticide significantly affect the sole-maize farmers’ technical efficiency. The study recommended that access to credit facilities at a low interest rate and formal education are veritable tools in ensuring that farmers expand their production.