ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF IRISH POTATO PRODUCTION IN PLATEAU STATE

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF IRISH POTATO PRODUCTION IN PLATEAU STATE

ABSTRACT

The study investigated the economics of Irish potato production in Plateau State. Data were collected from 120 farmers selected at random from 12 villages of three LGAs purposively selected out of the six potato producing areas of the state. The data were gathered through the use of structured questionnaires during the 2003 dry and 2004 rainy seasons. The tools of analysis used were simple descriptive statistics, farm budgeting technique and linear programming models. The result of the study indicated that the potato farmers were predominantly small-scale and fall between the age-group of 40-49 years with mean age of 41 years. However, the active and virile age groups of 20-29 and 30-39 were relatively low. The dominant cropping patterns were sole potato and potato/maize enterprises practiced in the dry and rainy season respectively. The optimum farm plans of the basic models revealed that higher productivity and more revenue could be achieved over the unplanned farms by reorganizing resources and activities in the potato-maize production system. The resource-use efficiencies showed that land and family labour were not critical factors and that they were in surplus. However, operating capital was a critical factor, implying that farmers lack enough capital to implement an organized farm plan. The sensitivity analysis showed that a 20% increase in the cost of fertilizer reduced farm income by 5%, 9% and 10% in the 3 LGAs while a subsequent increases in both input and output prices improved farmers income appreciably. Policy choices should therefore be geared towards encouraging more youths into farming by establishing programmes like graduate farming scheme. Research and extention intervention is required in the area of training farmers on how to re-organize farming activities and resources like labour and land to increase farmers income. To arrest the problem of high cost of production, government effort should focus on ways of – 7 – financing small scale farming, through coorperative saving schemes and input supply arrangements. Finally National Root Crop Research Institute should collaborate with International Potato Centre in the area of integrated pest and disease management to reduce the high rate potato perishability..

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF IRISH POTATO PRODUCTION IN PLATEAU STATE

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