Econometric analysis of cowpea production in the north-eastern part of Adamawa State, Nigeria.

摘要

Primary data were collected by multi-stage random sampling from 146 cowpea farmers in Adamawa State using questionnaires, to determine the costs and returns and efficiency of resource use in cowpea production. Descriptive statistics, gross margin and regression were used to analyze the data. Majority (85%) of the respondents were small scale farmers and married (83%), while 52.05% had formal education. Cowpea production was found profitable with an estimated gross margin and net income of Naira 13,654.33 and Naira 9,663.21 per hectare respectively. The Cobb-Douglas production function gave the best fit with 79.4% coefficient of determination. The enterprise exhibits increasing returns given the sum of elasticity (1.75). The beta coefficient result ranks the inputs (regressors) in descending order of magnitude as seed, farming experience, land, insecticide, hired labour, education and family labour which also shows the order of their importance. Efficiency of resource use proved land and seed to be under-used and thus, increase in the level of productive land and seed used could enhance profit and resource productivity. Inadequate inputs, lack of access to credit, pests and poor storage were the major problems of the farmers. Policy should be designed to ensure provision of inputs such as credit, seed and extension package timely and affordable to farmers.