ABSTRACT

The study evaluated the Optimal Farm Plan for Maize and Legumes Intercropping Systems in the Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria. Primary data were used for this study. A multistage sampling technique was used to select a sample size of three hundred and twenty-two (322) maize-legume farmers in the study area. Data were analyzed using Descriptive Statistics, Farm Budgetary Technique, Financial Analysis, Multiple Regression Analysis, Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Linear Programming, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and t-test Analysis. The results of the reliability test gave a Cronbach’s alphas of 0.6073 (60.73%). Most of the farmers are male with an average age of 49 years. Most (88.2%) were married and the mean household size was 7 people. The average farmer has 27 years of experience in maize-legume farming. The benefit-cost ratio was calculated to be 1.56, 2.42, and 1.69 for maize-soybean, maize-groundnut, and maize-cowpea enterprises respectively. The gross margin ratio was 0.62, 0.76, 0.66 for maize-soybean, maize-groundnut, and maize-cowpea enterprises respectively. The return on investment was 0.56, 1.42, and 0.69 for maize-soybean, maize-groundnut, and maize-cowpea enterprises respectively showing that the enterprises were profitable. The return to scale was calculated from the marginal productivity to be 1.24, 1.38, and 1.00 for the maize-soybean, maize-groundnut, and maize-cowpea models respectively. Resource available to maize-legumes farmers in the study area were seed, fertilizer, agrochemicals, and labour. Only fertilizer in maize-soybean enterprises was optimally utilized. The results of the stochastic production frontier model revealed that fertilizer(P<0.01), agrochemical(P<0.05), and seed(P<0.05) were the significant variables in the technical efficiency components.This implies that an increase in these variables will lead to the increase in output of maize-legume production. The result for the inefficiency components reveals that level of education(P<0.05) and household size(P<0.10) significantly influence technical inefficiency.This implies that an increase in these varaibles will lead to a decrease in technical inefficiency. From the linear programming results, only maize-groundnut enterprise was optimized. This implies that the other enterprise combinations were excluded from the optimal plan and if included will lead to a reduction in the value of the objective function. Herdsmen and farmers-clashes, Inadequate funds, and bureaucracy in accessing credit were the major production challenges faced by maize-legume farmers. Based on the findings it was recommended that labour-saving processing techniques like the simple shelling equipment for groundnuts should be adopted to reduce labour costs, extension officers should be employed to advocate for better land, seed, and labour utilization since it had a greater divergence from optimum values, and farmers should adopt the optimum farm plans prescribed, that is, produce the crop mixtures maize/groundnut that fit into the plan based on their resource allocation. Also, governments are advised to develop and implement policies that will help remove the bottlenecks in accessing agricultural loans. Interest-free loans or low-interest loans should be made available to farmers to encourage and increase production.