ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to evaluate the production efficiency and the profitability of sesame production in Gwer East and Konshisha Local Government Areas of Benue State, Nigeria. Primary data was collected from 154 sesame farmers through the use of structured questionnaires. Purposive and random sampling techniques were used for this study. Tools used for analyses were Descriptive statistics, Net Farm Income and Stochastic Frontier Production Model. The study showed that the respondents had an average age of 36 years with 12 years of sesame farming experience. Majority of the farmers (85%) had formal education. The average household size is 37 persons which is about 81% while majority of the farmers (60%) had no extension contact during the 2014 cropping season. Majority of the sesame farmers (53%) belonged to sesame cooperative society. Majority of the farmers (82%) had no access to credit facilities. The results of the stochastic frontier revealed that farm size, seed, labour and agrochemical had a positive technical relationship with sesame output and were significant at (p< 0.01) level. The determinants of technical efficiency were age, sesame farming experience, education, membership of sesame cooperative society and amount of credit received. The result shows a mean technical efficiency of 0.83 with minimum and maximum technical efficiencies of 0.34 and 0.99 respectively. The elasticity of production 1.01 revealed that sesame farmers were operating at an increasing return to scale. The costs of renting of land, seeds, labour, agrochemical and sesame output had a positive relationship with the cost of sesame production and were all significant at (p< 0.01) level. The determinants of allocative efficiency were age, sesame farming experience, household size, extension contact, membership of sesame cooperative society and amount of credit received. Furthermore, the result shows that the sesame farmers had a mean allocative efficiency of 0.69. The minimum and maximum allocative efficiencies of 0.31 and 0.92 were obtained.

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