Comparative economic analysis of NAFPP and traditional cassava/maize production technologies in Rivers State of Nigeria

Abstract

Farmers will relinquish an existing production technique and adopt a new one only if it would give them higher returns. The purpose of this paper is to compare the economics of two systems of cassava/maize production in Rivers State of Nigeria. These are the National Accelerated Food Production Project (NAFPP) and the Traditional Technology. Results show that NAFPP technology is more labour-intensive than the traditional technology (employing 357 man-days, as against 281 man-days per hectare used by traditional technology). Labour is a dominant cost item in both technologies of production—though it is relatively higher in the traditional system (90% as against 88% of total costs recorded for NAFPP technology). Though the total production costs in NAFPP technology are higher, this system gives a net operating margin of ▪964 per hectare as contrasted with the traditional system which gives a negative margin (− ▪492 per hectare). Thus, the analysis clearly demonstrates the superiority of NAFPP technology over the existing, traditional technology of cassava/maize production in Rivers State.