ABSTRACT
The Study focused on the Profitability and Production Efficiency of Bambaranut in Kajuru Local Government area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 180 farmers across the local Government. Structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data collected was based on 2014 cropping season. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier model, and the gross margin analysis. It was found that the mean age of bambaranut farmers was 39 years. The mean for householdsize was 6 persons. The mean for the level of education was found to be 1. The mean for farming experience was found to be 12. The mean for extension contact was 2. The mean for funds obtained by bambaranut farmers was ₦7100. The mean farm size was found to be 3 and that of the cooperative society was 2. It was also found that the mean technical efficiency was 0.70. The mean allocative efficiency was 0.613 while that of the economic efficiency was 0.475. The mean technical efficiency of 0.70 means that majority of the Bambaranut farmers operated closer to their production frontier. Also, this implies that on the average, bambaranut farmers are able to obtain 70% potential output from a given mix of productive resources. The result revealed that 21% of the farmers had allocative efficiency (AE) of between 0.61 and 0.8 while about 79% of the farmers operate at less than 0.61 allocative efficiency levels. This implies that the greater majority of Bambaranut farmers were not allocative efficient because 21% of them attained efficiency level greater than 0.61. That is, the farmers are not efficient in producing Bambaranut at a given level of output using the cost minimizing input ratio since 21% of the bambaranut farmers have allocative efficiencies of 0.61 and above. The mean economic efficiency of the bambaranut farmers in the study areas was 0.47. This implies that on the average, there was a fall in the bambaranut output level by 53% from the maximum feasible level due to economic inefficiency. Therefore, the bambaranut farmer with the best and least practice had economic efficiencies of 0.72 and 0.13 respectively. The Bambaranut farmers in the study area got an average cost of ₦116148.89 and average return of ₦928669.44. The result of the analysis indicates that bambaranut production is profitable in the study area. Finally, it was found that 25% of the respondents‟ ranked inadequate capital as the major constraint to bambaranut production. It is recommended that agricultural loan facilities should be made accessible to Bambaranut producers to ensure timely and adequate utilization of agricultural inputs for improvement in farm production efficiency by the formal financial institutions.
