Profit efficiency of small scale cowpea farmers in Niger State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The study examined the estimation of profit efficiency of small scale cowpea farmers in Niger State, Nigeria: A stochastic profit frontier approach. Data used for the study were obtained using structured questionnaire administered to 100 randomly selected cowpea farmers from Paiko and Gurara Local Government Areas of the State. The study showed that the levels of profit efficiency ranged from 11.62% to91.90% with mean of 77.75% suggesting that an estimated 22.25% of the profit was lost due to a combination of both technical and allocative inefficiency in cowpea production. From the results obtained, although farmers were generally relatively efficient, they still have room to increase the profit efficiency in their farming activities as about 23 percent efficiency gap from optimum (100%) remains yet to be attained by all farmers. The result further showed that, age, farmers’ educational level, and years of farming experience significantly influenced the farmers’ efficiency positively. It is recommended that investments in rural education through effective extension delivery program in the current political and economic environment in Nigeria should be provided