Profitability of Sole Cowpea Production in Gombi Zone Of Adamawa State Agricultural Development Programme, Nigeria

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1 Profitability of Sole Cowpea Production in Gombi Zone Of Adamawa State Agricultural Development Programme, Nigeria * Isah, H 1., E. F. Adebayo 2, Muhammad Bala 2, Offar Gwandi 3 1 Agricultural Policy, Extension and Socio-Economic Research Programme, Agricultural Research Council of Nigeria (ARCN), Agricultural Research House Plot 223D Cadastral Zone B6, Mabushi,Wuse-Abuja, Nigeria. 2 Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension, Modibbo Adama University of Technology (MAUTECH), P.M.B. 2076, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria. 3 Department of Agricultural Technology, Federal Polytechnic Mubi, P.M.35 Mubi, Adamawa State, Corresponding Author Address: godoffer@yahoo.com ABSTRACT This study examined the profitability of sole cowpea production in Gombi Zone of Adamawa State Agricultural Development Programme, Nigeria. Primary data were collected through the administration of structured questionnaires to 140 sole cowpea farmers using multi-stage random sampling technique. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics which include frequency counts, mean and percentages and gross margin analysis. The study revealed that, majority (76.26%) of the respondents were male, 73.38% were married with about 78% of the respondents having at least six household members, 86.33% were in their productive age, 60.43% were full time farmers, 82.73% having attended at least primary education, 75.54% acquired land through inheritance and 94.96% had farm size between 1 5 hectares. About 87% sourced their funds for cowpea production from their personal savings, 90.65% sold their produce in the rural markets and 87.05% had no contact with extension agents. The gross margin analysis revealed that, sole cowpea production is a profitable venture in the study area with an average total cost, gross revenue, gross margin and net farm income per hectare of 21,589.03, 41,652.98, 21,440.68, and 20, respectively. The major constraints faced by sole cowpea farmers in the study area includes: high cost of farm inputs, pest and diseases, poor market outlet, high cost of transportation, inadequate credit facilities and inadequate improved seed. This study recommend that: Farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative society/thrift and savings society to enable them have access to improved farm inputs and enhance the accessibility to credit facilities; Farm inputs such as improved seed, agrochemicals should be made available and affordable to farmers on time as they contribute significantly to cowpea production. Since sole cowpea production has the potential to reduce poverty and increase farmers income, more farmers should be encouraged to go in to sole cowpea production and acquiring land through inheritance should be discouraged to enhance commercial production. Keywords: Profitability, Sole cowpea, Production, Gombi Zone, Adamawa State, Nigeria. 41

2 INTRODUCTION Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L) Walp) is the second most important pulse crop in Africa with significant contribution to the agricultural and human diet in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially West-Africa where the crop appears to have been domesticated. The crop is grown extensively in the low land and mid-latitude regions of Africa particularly in the dry savanna, sometimes as a sole crop but more often in mixture with cereals, typically sorghum or millet (IITA, 1992a). Significant production takes place in Nigeria, Upper Volta, Uganda and Senegal. Cowpea is an important grain legume widely grown in Savanna Zone of Nigeria. According to Singh and Jackai (1985), the world annual production of cowpea was estimated to be 2.27 million tonnes of which Nigeria produces about 850,000 tonnes. When cowpea is adequately protected from pests and diseases with the use of improved technologies, yield of 1,500-2,000kg/ha can be obtained on sole cropping. However, peasant farmers that produce most of the cowpea available in the market in Nigeria obtained yield ranging from kg/ha and in some cases zero yield because they do not control the pests using the improved technologies available (Singh and Jackai, 1985). Cowpea is also of major importance to the livelihood of millions of relatively poor people in less developed countries of the tropics. From production of this crop, rural families variously derived food, animal feed and cash together with spill over benefits to the land through decayed root residues, animal manure and ground cover; it provides a cheap and nutritious food for relatively poor urban communities (Quin, 1997). Cowpea production is a farming enterprise in which inputs are used with the aim of getting desired output. So, higher returns relative to costs involved are the major features of a profitable agricultural production. Therefore, the role of costs and return analysis to cowpea production cannot be over emphasized and have been determined in production economic studies (Amaze, 1999). Agricultural production involves the process of combining input resources in to organized productive unit under management with ultimate objective to maximize profit, maximize satisfaction and minimize cost or a combination of some or all of the motives of a farm enterprise (Olayide and Heady, 1982). Profitability is a positive return to working capital and capital invested in various productive assets including land. In case of capital assets, profitability should ensure return of capital and also return to capital at rate equal to or exceeding the prevalent market rate of interest (Srinivasan, 2007). In agricultural production, the profit obtained depends largely on the cost of inputs used, efficient technology employed and a good market price for the products. The study of costs and return therefore, help the farmers to determine the viability of their farm business and guide them in enterprise selection (Alimi, 2000). Cost refers to the value of inputs used in production while profit is obtained by subtracting the costs from the revenue. Farm costs are often divided in to fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs are incurred in fixed assets such as building, land, fences and other permanent assets, on the other hand; variable costs are those costs incurred on assets that can be liquidated, examples are the costs of fertilizer, animal feed, labour and agrochemicals (Adegeye and Dittoh 1985; Olukosi and Erhabor, 1988). In which ever form the cost is incurred, 42

3 it is with the hope of deriving some benefit from the action taken. A rational decision maker is assumed to choose an enterprise combination with lower cost and greater profit all things being equal. METHODOLOGY The study was conducted in Gombi Zone of Adamawa State Agricultural Development Programme, Nigeria. The study area comprises of 23 wards with several villages which are located between latitude and N and longitude and E of the Greenwich meridian. The study area has a mean temperature of about C with annual rainfall ranging between 900mm-1100mm (Adebayo, 1999). It lies within the Northern Guinea Savanna vegetation with a current population of 441,816 people. It is bordered with Gombi and Uba-askira of Borno State to the North, Maiha and Mubi to the East, Girei and Fufore to the South and Shelleng to the West. The various ethnic groups in the study area include: Bwatiya, Fulani, Gudu, Hausa, Higi, Kanakuri, Kanuri, Kilba, Mboi, and Yungur. The major agricultural activities in the study area are farming and rearing of animals. The non-farm economic activities include trading, blacksmith, carpentry and home arts. The major food crops grown in the area are cowpea, sorghum, millet, maize, rice, sweet potato and cassava while the major cash crops are groundnut, beniseed and sugarcane. The animals reared in the study area are cattle, sheep and goat. The farming system adopted in the zone was either monocropping or mixed cropping. Multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted for the selection of sole cowpea farmers in the zone. Gombi zone which is one of the four zones of Adamawa State Agricultural Development Programme is made-up of four Local Government Areas which include: Girei, Gombi, Hong and Song Local Government Areas. In the first stage, Hong and Song Local Government Areas were purposively selected based on their prominence in sole cowpea production. In the second stage, in Hong all the names of the villages were written on papers and wrapped from where eight were picked at random and also all the names of villages in Song were also written on paper and wrapped from where six were picked at random, more villages were picked in Hong because it has more villages than Song Local Government Area. In the third stage, random selection of 140 sole cowpea farmers in the 14 sampled villages in proportionate to the sizes of the villages as shown in Table 1. Table 1: Distribution of Sole Cowpea Farmers in the 14 Selected Villages LGAs Villages Sample frame No. of Sample Hong Fadama-reke 87 9 Hong-gari Kuva-gaya

4 Kwakwa ah Makera 80 8 Mombol Mutuku 78 8 Sikalmi Total Song Gudu Mbilla 77 8 Sigire 85 9 Song-gari Sabon-gari Wuro-Mallum 88 9 Total Grand Total Source: Field survey, 2011 Data Analysis The data were analyzed using both descriptive statistics and Gross margin analysis. Descriptive Statistics: These include the use of frequency counts, means and percentages. The formula for mean is given as: X = ΣX i (1) n Gross Margin Analysis: This is a profitability analysis which was used to estimate the total cost and total return within the production period. The profit level as measured using Alabi and Adebayo (2008) which is specified as: GM = GR TVC (2) NFI = TGM TFC 44

5 Where: GM = Gross Margin ( /Ha) GR = Gross Revenue ( ) TVC = Total variable cost ( /Ha) NFI = Net farm income ( /Ha) TGM = Total gross margin ( /Ha) TFC = Total fixed cost ( /Ha) TC = Total Cost ( /Ha) RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Socio-economic Characteristics of Respondents The socio-economic characteristics of the respondents were shown in Table 2. Majority (76.26%) of sole cowpea farmers were male while 23.74% were female. This indicates that, there are more male participating in sole cowpea production than the female counterparts in the study area. This agrees with the findings of Tiplida et al. (2006) that few women cultivate cowpea. Majority (86.33%) of the respondents were within the age range of years while 13.67% were 50 years and above of the total respondents. The mean age of the respondents was 37 years; this indicates that most of them were young and active with enough strength to carryout agricultural activities. Table 2 shows that, majority (73.38%) of respondents were married, about 20% were single and 7.2% constitutes divorced and widow/widower. The result shows that, there are more married people in sole cowpea production than those that are single, divorced and widow/widower. This may be as a result of more family responsibilities such as feeding, health care and education of the children while single producers face less responsibility. The married people that form the majority could explain the larger family size, which may provide a much cheaper source of labour force. This result is expected because marriage is considered important for matured people in the African setting, (Adebayo et al., 2010). About 78% of the respondents have at least six household members which constitute majority of sole cowpea farmers in the study area and about 23% had 1-5 household members with mean household members of eight. This implies that, sole cowpea farmers with large family size could serve as a vital source of labour for agricultural activities. It can also mount more pressure on the heads of the household in making appropriate allocation of resource to obtain maximum potential output to meet the needs of the family. Ogundele and Okoruwa (2006) stated that family labour constituted the major proportion of the aggregate labour use in Nigerian agriculture. Farmers efficiency in using information on new production techniques increases with education and thus, their productivity (Amaza, 2000). Table 2 also shows that, about 83% of sole cowpea farmers were literate having attempted at least primary education. However, about 18% of the respondents had no formal 45

6 education. This group of sole cowpea farmers can hardly accept new innovation as asserted by Osuji (1993) that there exist a positive relationship between education and adoption. The distribution of respondents by occupation revealed that, majority (60.43%) of respondents are full-time farmers, this shows that majority of the respondents depend on farming for their livelihood. Civil servants constitute 18%, this group practice sole cowpea farming, possibly to supplement their income. Fishing, trading, hunting and others constitute 21.57%. A similar study conducted by Moses and Adebayo (2008) in Ganye, revealed that majority of respondents were engaged in rice farming as their main occupation. Farm size, shows that, majority (94.96%) of the respondents had farm size between 1-5 hectares; about 6% had farm size greater than 5 hectares and the mean farm size was 3.5 hectares. Farm size is a very important variable that influence output, this implies that majority of sole cowpea farmers in the study area are small-scale farmers who do not enjoy economies of scale. According to Olayide et al. (1982), small-scale farmers are those farmers that cultivate land of hectares. Land ownership, shows that majority (75.54%) of the sole cowpea farmers acquired their land through inheritance, followed by leased/rented with 13.67%, purchase and gift constituted about 11%. The implication of majority using inherited land is that, it would lead to fragmentation of farm land as a result of sharing among siblings hence reducing the size of farm land for agricultural practices. Pattern of land ownership by inheritance and purchase tends to promote security, management and motivation to farmers for efficient utilization of resources than land acquired through lease or hire (Rahman, 2003). Majority (90.65%) of the respondents sold their produce in the rural market and only about 10% sold their produce in the urban market as depicted by Table 2. This implies that, the farmers may not enjoy remunerative prices for their products which should in turn enhance their production. Olayemi (1972) upheld that tackling the problem of improved marketing should act as one of incentives for promoting commercial production of agricultural commodities. Source of capital reveals that, majority (86.33%) of the respondents sourced their fund from their personal savings, about 9% of sole cowpea farmers sourced their fund from friends/relations and about 6% obtained theirs from commercial banks. This implies that, about 95% did not have access to credit facilities which means this group did not have enough to expand their agricultural activities to change from small-scale to large-scale production of cowpea. This is in line with the findings of Alimi (2000), where he stated that inadequate financial capital could impede the performance of farming activities and also affect the use of some agricultural inputs. Extension service is the major tool through which new innovations are disseminated to the practicing farmers which usually have significant effects on the efficiency level of farmers. Table 2 reveals that, about 88% of the sole cowpea farmers in the study area had no contact with extension agents while only 13% had contacts. This implies that, the services of the extension agents in the study area are not adequate and the level of efficiency of sole cowpea farmers might be static since the extension agents/workers are not visiting them on their farms. Extension contact is a key component in technology innovation and adoption, farmers that have access to information about the use of agricultural production technologies are supposed to increase farm 46

7 output (Ogungbike and Olukosi, 1992). Table 2: Socio-economic Characteristics of the Respondents Characteristics Frequency Percentage (%) Gender Male Female Age Marital status Married Single Divorced Widow/widower Household size Literacy level No formal education Primary education Secondary education Tertiary education Primary occupation Farming Fishing Trading Civil servant Hunting Others (specified) Farm size Land ownership Inheritance

8 Leased/rented Purchased Gift Extension contact Yes No Total Source: Field survey, 2011 Costs and Return of Sole Cowpea Production The costs and return associated with cowpea production in the study area is presented in Table 3. The Table shows that the average total variable cost of sole cowpea production per hectare was 20, which accounted for 93.62% of the total cost of production and total average fixed cost per hectare was accounted for only 6.38% of the total cost of production ( 21,589.03). Cost of seed: This is a cost incurred on purchasing cowpea seeds (both local and improved seeds) by the farmers during the accounting period. It is measured in naira per hectare. The analysis revealed that the average money spent on local varieties of cowpea was while an improved variety was Cost of labour: This is the total amount of money (in naira per hectare) spent on paid labour and having converted the cost of family labour by the prevailing market price rate by the farmer during farm operations. The analysis revealed that the average amount of money spent on paid labour was and unpaid labour was obtained as Cost of fertilizer: This is cost incurred on purchasing fertilizer (organic and inorganic fertilizer) and it was measured in naira per hectare. The analysis shows that the average amount of money spent on inorganic fertilizer was and was spent on organic fertilizer. Cost of agrochemicals: This is the amount of money incurred on the purchasing of pesticides and herbicides during farm operations. It is measured in naira per hectare. The analysis revealed that 2, was expended on the purchasing the herbicides and only was incurred on pesticides. Cost of transportation: This is the total amount (in naira per hectare) spent in transporting both inputs and output to and from the farm to the farmers house during a production season. The analysis revealed that was spent on transporting farm produce to the house and was incurred on transporting farm inputs to the farm. Rent on land/depreciation: This is amount of money spent on renting land and depreciation on some farm tools such as axe, cutlass, hoes, rake and sprayers among others. It was calculated at 10% using declining balance method of depreciation. The analysis revealed that was obtained from the depreciation and amount paid as a rent on land during the production season. The total cost of production: The sum of average total variable cost and average total fixed cost was 48

9 21, These were measured in naira per hectare. Gross revenue: This is the product of quantity of yield per hectare by the unit price. The analysis revealed that 41, were realized as the revenue obtained from the production of cowpea in the zone. Gross margin (GR TVC): The gross margin per hectare for cowpea production was estimated as 21, and it was measured in naira per hectare. The net farm income were estimated as 20, Table 3: Average Costs and Return per hectare of Cowpea Production Inputs Cost ( /Ha) Variable cost: Seed Labour 13, Fertilizer Agro-chemicals 3, Transportation Other variable cost 1, Total variable cost (TVC) 20, Fixed cost: Rent on Land Depreciation of fixed assets Total fixed cost (TFC) 1, Total cost of production (TVC+TFC) 21, Returns: Gross Revenue (GR) 41, Gross Margin (GR-TVC) 21, Net Farm Income (GM-TFC) 20, Source: Field survey, 2011 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 49

10 The study revealed that, sole cowpea production in the study area is a profitable venture despite numerous constraints being identified which include: high cost of inputs, high cost of transportation, poor market outlet, pests and diseases, inadequate credit facilities and improved seeds. Majority of the respondents were male, married, full-time farmers and they were in their productive stage with family size of at least six household members. Most of them attended at least primary education, having farm size between 1 5 hectares and acquired their farm land through inheritance. Most of them had no contact with extension agents and access to credit facilities. This study recommends that: i. Farmers should be encouraged to form cooperative society/thrift and savings society to pool their resources together to enable them to have access to improved farm inputs and to enhance the accessibility to credit facilities. ii. Farm inputs such as improved seed, agrochemicals should be made available and affordable to all farmers in time as they contribute significantly to cowpea production. iii. Sole cowpea production has the potential to reduce poverty and increase farmers income. Therefore, more farmers should be encouraged to go in to sole-cowpea production and acquiring land through inheritance should be discouraged to enhance commercial production. REFERENCES [1]. Adebayo, A.A climate I and II Adamawa State in Maps, Adebayo, A.A and Tukur A.L. (eds). Department of Geography, Federal University of Technology, Yola. Paraclete Publisher, Yola a. pp [2]. Adebayo, E.F., Moses, J.D. and Olawoye, H.U Technical Efficiency of Women Farmers in Adamawa State. Proceedings of the 24 National Conference of Farm Management Association of Nigeria, Faculty of Agriculture, Adamawa State University, Mubi, Nigeria, October, pp [3]. Adegeye, A.J. and Dittoh, J.S Essentials of Agricultural Economics. Impact Publishers, Ibadan, Nigeria, pp. 71. [4]. Alimi, T Resource-use Efficiency in Food production in Oyo State of Nigeria. Journal of Agriculture and Environment, Vol. 1 pp.1 7. Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto. [5]. Amaza, P.S Resource-use Efficiency in Food Crop Production in Gombe State, Nigeria. Unpublished Ph.D thesis submitted to Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. [6]. International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA, 1992a). Sustainable Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa 1, IITA s Contribution. IITA, Ibadan-Nigeria. 50

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