ECONOMICS OF MILLET PRODUCTION UNDER DIFFERENT CROPPING SYSTEMS IN BORNO STATE OF NIGERIA

ECONOMICS OF MILLET PRODUCTION UNDER DIFFERENT CROPPING SYSTEMS IN BORNO STATE OF NIGERIA

Abstract:

The purpose of the study was to determine the economics of millet production under different cropping systems in Borno State of Nigeria. The specific objectives were to identify the socioeconomic characteristics of the millet growing farmers; determine the resource use in the cropping systems; determine the relationship between socio-economic variables and agricultural outputs of the farmers; determine differences in cost and returns among millet crop mixtures; estimate production functions for millet cropping systems; compare relative importance and resource use efficiency of common resources used in millet crop mixtures; and identify the major technical and socio-economic problems of the millet growing farmers. Data for the study were collected using questionnaire and interview schedules administered to 180 farmers growing millet in mixtures. Thirty six (36) farmers were randomly selected from each of the stratum of the five major millet crop mixtures grown in the study area, namely; millet/sorghum, millet/cowpea, millet/groundnut, millet/sorghum/cowpea and millet/sorghum/groundnut. Analysis of data was achieved by means of simple descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, multiple regression, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and chi-square statistic (X2). The major findings of the study indicate that educational level of the farmers, resident household size and number of extension workers visits were the major socio-economic variables which positively and significantly affected their outputs as indicated by the linear regression model. Age and farming experience were inversely related to output. Millet/cowpea mixture was the most profitable, with gross margin of N20,689.03. Food security objective, however, was the major reason for growing millet in mixtures. The semi-log production function gave the best fit for the millet-based cropping systems. Farm size was significant at 5% in all the cropping systems, except millet/groundnut. Except for millet/sorghum mixture, seed rate was found to be significant in all the crop mixtures. Fertilizer was insignificant at 5% in all the mixtures, while labour was insignificant in millet/sorghum/cowpea and millet/sorghum/groundnut production. A measure of the relative importance of the resources in production shows that land ranked first in all the mixtures, except in millet/groundnut where it ranked second, perhaps due to the extensive rather than intensive land use in peasant agriculture. Comparison of economic efficiency of resource use based on the ratio of the marginal value product (MVP) and marginal factor cost (MFC) indicates that all the inputs were under-utilized, in all the cropping systems. Millet/cowpea mixture had the highest return to scale (2.93), followed by millet/groundnut mixture (2.92), both exhibiting increasing return to scale. This implies that 1% increase in the set of inputs for millet/cowpea and millet/groundnut mixtures would increase output by 2.93 and 2.92 percent respectively. High cost of inputs was ranked as the most important agronomic problem by 50% of the farmers. This was followed by lack of finance, soil infertility, drought and erosion. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that farm support and tractor of animal traction services aimed at supplying adequate inputs and labour should be rendered to the farmers, while the extension service should be revitalised to ensure more visits to them. The use of organic manure to complement artificial fertilizer should be encouraged and dry planting (sene) discouraged to reduce losses due to drought.

ECONOMICS OF MILLET PRODUCTION UNDER DIFFERENT CROPPING SYSTEMS IN BORNO STATE OF NIGERIA