Agriculture Sciences and Farming Technology

Biography

Biography: RABIU MOHAMMED SANI

Abstract

This study examined the resource-us efficiency in potato production among male and female farmers in Plateau State. Nigeria. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used to select 500 farmers from the study villages. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics, farm budgeting and regression analysis. The results revealed that, the mean ages were 47 and 42 years for male and female farmers, respectively. The mean difference in the age and household size were statistically significant at p<001.  Also, cost of labour was N33, 392.01 and N52, 770.56 for male and female potato farmers, respectively. The results on t-test indicated that, total returns, gross margin and net farm incomes were negative and significant at P<0.05. The co-efficient of labour, agro-chemicals, fertilizer and seed were statistically significant at P<0.01 and P<0.1.Consequently, the value for labour was statistically significant at P<0.005 for female farmers. The ratio of marginal value product and marginal factor cost of labour for male and female farmers were 0.85 and 0.88; and that of farm size were 0.95 and 0.91 respectively. The results on unrestricted and restricted profit function showed that all the variable inputs were statistically significant except fertilizer. The ratio of normalized price of inputs and their corresponding quantities to normalized profit need adjustment. Thus, in order to increase the output level of male farmers by N1.00/kg of potato yield, labour cost should be increased by N0.52, fertilizer by N0.72, seed by N0.46 and agro – chemical by N3.33. Farmers should be encouraged to used organic fertilizer as a result of high cost of inorganic fertilizers in the study area to boost production and sustainability.