Assessing the profitability of fresh cassava production among smallholder farmers in Lira city west division

Abstract

Cassava farming is one of the agricultural enterprises contributing to the increased supply of food and household income of the farmers. The aim of the study was to assess the profitability of cassava production among smallholder farmers in Lira City West division and it targeted 80 cassava farmers in the parishes of Odokomit, Ober, Bar-Apwo, Amuca, Omito, Ojwina. A structured questionnaire was used to collect field data which was later entered in Microsoft excel and analyzed using SPSS. The majority of the respondents (67.5%) were married with 78.8% of the families having fathers as the household heads. The study also indicated that the majority of the respondents (67.5%) had inherited the land used for cultivation. In terms of education, 41.25 percent had acquired tertiary education followed by secondary education (35.0%). The average age of the respondents was 44 years and the average household size was 6.35 heads per household with an average of 3.56 children. The most grown variety of cassava was Bao with 31.3% (n=31.3) followed by NAROCASS 1 which was grown by 19.2% of the farmers and Nyaraboke with 18.2%. On average, farmers have experience of 9.14 years in cassava production and allocate 1.44 acres of land for farmland with an average number of 5.15 laborers. During production, various costs were incurred but these were categorized into variable and fixed costs. The total average variable costs incurred throughout the production cycle per acre was UGX 310,272.20 and the total fixed cost was UGX 426,741.67 giving a total of UGX 737,013.87 for overall cost incurred during cassava production per acre. The total revenue obtained per acre was UGX 1,932,500 giving a gross margin of UGX 1,195,486 which was 62%. Conclusively, the study revealed that cassava production is a profitable venture that can be used to increase the farmers’ income. However, increasing access to land to both males and females can help to increase production thus an increase in the farmers’ income as well.