Performance Analysis of Small Scale Sweet Potato Farms in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study carried out an analysis of the performance of sweet potato production among small holder farmers in Oyo State of Nigeria. A combination of purposive and a two-stage random sampling technique were used to obtain information from 65 respondents. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier functions and budgetary technique. Results indicated that majority of the farmers were literate, aged 43.3 years on the average, full time in sweet potato production and with mean farm size of 1.0 hectare. The gross margin and net profit were ₦76, 884.8 and ₦67,292.8, respectively (₦, naira Nigerian Currency, ₦160 = 1$US) indicating that sweet potato production was profitable. The return to scale (RTS) for the production function revealed that farmers operated in the irrational zone (stage I) of the production surface. The stochastic production frontier analysis revealed that the technical efficiencies of farmers was found to be fairly high with a mean of 0.92% which suggest that the average sweet potato output falls 0.08% short of the maximum possible level but the efficiency can be increased by better use of available resources.