Differentials in market competitiveness among sweet potato farmers in south east, Nigeria: A gender analysis

Abstract

Sweet potato has emerged as an attractive crop of choice for resource-constrained households in Nigeria as it promotes food security and economic growth. Nigeria is the third largest producer of sweet potato in the world, yet the level of market competitiveness in and outside the country  remains poor. This study provided empirical data on gender analyses of market competitiveness among sweet potato farmers in Nigeria. A total of 360 farmers were sampled using a multi-stage procedure and data analyzed using Policy Analysis Matrix. The result showed that sweet potato  production had positive private and social prices for male and female farmers indicating that the system was competitive at given prevalent  government policies and transfers and utilized scarce resources efficiently. The result also shows a negative social and private policy divergence for male and female farmers indicating that the net effect of policy intervention reduced profitability at the farm level which is detrimental to  producers. The coefficients of competitiveness and comparative advantage indicators shows that nominal protection coefficient on tradable outputs and on tradable inputs, effective protection coefficient, domestic resource cost ratio, social cost benefit ratio and private cost ratio were less than unity for both male and female farmers indicating competitiveness in sweet potato production in the study area. If Nigeria is going to attain self-sufficiency in the production of sweet potato and effectively compete in the market with other countries, there is an urgent need on removal of policy distortions through increased incentives and more reduction in the cost of labour through sweet potato mechanization.

Key words: competitive advantage, farm budget and policy analysis matrix (PAM)