Farming Techniques, Environmental Challenges, and Technical Efficiency of Sweet Potato Production in Abia State, Nigeria

International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development

مقاله 2، دوره 6، شماره 4، اسفند 2016، صفحه 409-420   

نوع مقاله: Research Article

نویسندگان

Nnamdi Ehirim¹؛ Glory Ben-Chendo¹؛ Stephen Onyeagocha¹؛ Ubon Essien^{* 1}؛ Emeka Osuji²؛ Melissa Okwara²

¹Department of Agricultural Economics, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria

²Department of Agricultural Economics, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria

چکیده

Viable sweet potato production is hard to achieve with indiscriminate use of farm inputs, resulting to wastage and environmental damages, as consequences are common problems of arable crop farming in Abia State. Issues arising from farm input use and their corresponding implications for environment called for a study on suitable farming practices and farm-specific technical efficiency for optimal resource use in sweet potato production in Abia State. Data were obtained from 156 sweet potatoe farmers through a multistage sampling technique using a structured questionaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean, relative frequency distribution, and the stochastic production frontier. Results showed that using inorganic fertilizer (65.378%) under rainfed production system with a frequent bush burning (66.67%) and low liming (5.8%) were very common practices with leaching, fragile soil, erosion, flooding, and soil acidity as consequences. Mixed cropping (63.46%) with improved varieties like TIS 8164 (71.2%) and 0087 (64.1%) were copping measures to some environmental challenges. Maximum Likelihood Estimates (MLE) showed a decreasing return to a scale of 0.236. The implication is that an increase in farm size and fertilizer application can significantly lead to a less than 0.06538 and 0.08142 proportionate increase in output of sweet potato respectively, or reduces it by less than 0.00413, with interest on borrowed capital. The gamma (0.0403) was less than unity and was significant at p < 0.05, implying that about 4.30% discripancies in observed and frontier output was due to technical inefficiencies of sweet potato farmers. The wide disparity in farmers’ technical efficiencies ranged from 0.298% to 99.4%, and a mean of 47.1% suggested a need to bridge the gap. Hence, a reduction in household size, farming experience, and sourcing of planting materials from NRCRI or IITA is believed to increase farmers’ technical inefficiency, which can be reduced with age and formal educational level of sweet Potato farmers in the area. All in all, the results suggest that reducing bush burning but increasing liming as well as including organic soil ammendments and irrigation practicies, when combined with the use of young and educated farmers, can reduce environmental damages and also increase farmers’ technical efficiency when it comes to sweet potato production in the area.  
 

کلیدواژه‌ها

environment؛ Technology؛ Efficiency؛ Sweet potato production؛ stochastic frontier؛ Abia State

مراجع

Adejuwon, S. A. (2004, September). Impacts of climate variability and climate change on crop yield in Nigeria. In stakeholders’ workshop on assessment of impacts and adaptation to climate change Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

 Age, A. I., Demenongu, T.S., & Obinne, C.P.O. (2012). Overview of the effects of climate change on agricultural productivity in Nigeria: Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies. Proceedings of the seventeenth annual Conference of the Agricultural Extension Society of Nigeria.

 Aigner, D. J., Lovell, C.A.K., & Schmidt, P. (1977). Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function model. Journal of Econometrics, 1 (1), 21-37.

Akande, S.O. (2008). Prospect for agricultural sustainability and growth. A paper presented at the National Productivity Workshop. A Newsletter of the Nasarawa Agricultural Development Programme, 2(1), 16-28.

 Al-Kaisi, M. (2012). Conservation practices save soil and sustain agriculture. Integrated Crop Management News,j Paper 198, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cropnews/198

 Assa, Maganga M., Edriss, Abdi-Khalil, & Matchaya Greenwell C. (2012). Unexploited Profit among Smallholder Farmers in Central Malawi: What are the Sources? International Journal of Applied Economics, 9(2), 83-95.

Coelli, V.J. (1996). Guide to Frontier Version 4.1: A computer program for stochastic frontier production and cost function estimation. Department of Economics, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

 Ebuzoeme, O. D. (2015).Evaluating the Effects of Flooding in Six Communities in Awka Anambra State of Nigeria. Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5 (4), 26-38.

Ehirim, N. C., Okere, R. A., Onyeagocha, S. U. O., Rahji, M. A. Y., Awoyemi, T. T., Oluwatayo B. I., & Salman, K. K. (2013). Econometric analysis of suitability and marginal value productivity of farmlands for cassava production in Imo State, Nigeria.  Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, 5(11), 450–456. DOI 10.5897/JDAE 2013.0505 ISSN 2006 – 977 Academic Journals Retrieved from  http://www.academicjournals.org/JDAE

 Greene, W. )1997(. Frontier production functions. In Handbook of Applied Econometrics, Vol. 2, Microeconomics, H. Pesaran and P. Schmidt (Eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 Hornick, S.B., & Parr, J.F. (2010). Restoring the productivity of marginal soils with organic amendments Ecological Agriculture Projects, McGill University (Macdonald Campus) Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, H9X 3V9 Canada. American Journal of Alternative Agriculture, 2(2), 64-68.

 Hussein A. (2004). Principles of environmental economics (2^nd ed.). UK: Routledge, ISBN-13: 978-0415275606, Pp. 384.

 Igwe, C.A., & Stahr, K. (2004). Water–stable aggregates of flooded inceptions from southeastern Nigeria in relation to mineralogy and chemical properties. Australian Journal of Soil Resources, 42,171-179.

 Kapinga, R. E., Ewell, P. T., & Jeremiah, S. C. (1997). Sweet potato in tanzanian farming and food systems. Implications for Research (p. 47), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, Tanzania and International Potato Centre (CIP), Nairobi Kenya.

 Meeusen, N., & Van-den Broeck, J. (1977). Efficiency estimation from Cobb Douglas production functions with composite error. International Economic Review, 18 (2), 123-134.

 National Population Commission (NPC) (2007). Details of the breakdown of the national and    state provincial population totals 2006 census. Federal Republic of Nigeria Official Gazette, 94(24), 1-26.

 Ndukwu, P. C (2010). Gender and relative efficiency in sweet potato (ipomoea batas) production in Imo State, Nigera. Unpublished thesis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Nigeria.

 Njoku, J. C., Muoneke, C. O., Okocha, P. I., & Ekeleme, F. (2009). Effect of propagule size and intra-row spacing on the growth and yield of sweet potato in Humid Agro-Ecological Zone. The Nigerian Agricultural Journal, 40(1-2), 115-124.

 Nwaru, J. C. (2003).Gender and relative production efficiency in food crop farming in Abia State of Nigeria. The Nigerian Agricultural Journal, 34, 1 – 10.

 Ogbonna, K. I., Idiong, I. C., & Ndifon, H. M. (2007). Adoption of soil management and conservation technologies by small scale crop farmers in south eastern Nigeria: Implications for sustainable crop production. Medwell online Agricultural Journal 2(2), 294-298.

 Ogundari, K., & Ojo, O.S. (2006). An examination of technical, economic and allocative efficiency of small farms: The case of cassava farmers in Osun State. Journal of Central European Agriculture, 7(3), 423-432.

 Olayide, S.O, & Heady, E.O (1982). Introduction to agricultural production economics. Department of Agricultural Economics University of Ibadan. University Press Ibadan. Pp. 9-247.

Oldeman, L. R., Hakkeling, R. T. A., &. Sombroek, W. G. (1991). World map of the status of human-induced soil degradation: an explanatory note. Global Assessment of Soil Degradation (GLASOD), International Soil Reference Information Centre (ISRIC), and United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

 Oni, O., Nkonya, E., Pender, J. , Phillips, D., & Kato, E. (2009). Trends and drivers of agricultural productivity in Nigeria. Nigeria Strategy Support Program (NSSP) Report (001). International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI Headquaters, 2033 K Street NW Washington, DC 20006-1002 USA Supported by CGIAR.

 Onwueme, I. C. (1978). The tropical tuber crops. John Wiley and Sons, New York. (Pp. 187).

 Porcelli, F. (2009). Measurement of technical efficiency: A brief survey on parametric and non-parametric techniques. University of Warwick, 11, 1-27.

 Scherr, S.J., & Yadav, S. (1996). Land degradation in the developing world: Implications for food, agriculture, and the environment to 2020. Discussion paper 14, International Food policy Resource Institute, Washington DC. Pp. 36.

 Tewe.,O. O., Abu, O. A.,  Ojeniyi, E. F.,   & Nwokocha N. H.  (2001). Status of sweet potato production, utilization and marketing in Nigeria. In M. O. Akoroda, & J. M. Ngeve (Eds.), Root Crops in the 21^st Century (pp. 65-74). Proceedings of the 7^th Triennial Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops, African Branch, 11-17 October, 1998.

 Woolfe, J.A. (1992). Sweet potato and untapped food resource. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.