ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF COWPEA PRODUCTION IN NIGERIA

This study employs a stochastic frontier production function analysis to examine the productivity and technical efficiency of cowpea production in Adamawa State, Nigeria and also to identify the factors affecting the technical inefficiency using farm level survey data collected from 150 cowpea farmers selected using multi stage sampling technique. Findings from the analysis show that cowpea farmers operated on a very small scale and are profitable. The productivity analysis shows that agro chemicals, fertilizer, farm size and labor were all positively and significantly related to the technical efficiency. The return to scale (RTS) of 0.9904 shows that cowpea production was in the rational stage of the production surface. The technical efficiency varies from 0.1094 to 0.9568 with a mean technical efficiency of 0.6649, indicating that farmers were operating below the efficiency frontier. Thus, in the short run, there is a scope to increase output by 34%. The inefficiency model revealed that education of the farmers; extension visits and access to credit are the main factors that affect technical efficiency of the farmers.