Costs And Returns Analysis Of Gum Arabic And Some Selected Tree Crops Production In Adamawa And

ABSTACT: The study compared the economic benefits derived from gum arabic production and some selected tree crops in Adamawa and Yobe States, Nigeria in order to assess their impact of poverty alleviation on the respondents. Primary data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire administered on 150 farmers, out of which 104 were retrieved and used for the study. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result indicated that majority of the respondents (48.08%) were between the ages of 41 – 50 years and all the respondents had one form of education or the order with majority (44.23%) obtained either HND or Degree. Most of them (42.3%) and (38.46%) operated on small scale (1- 5 ha) for gum arabic and the other tree crops respectively. Only 3.85 % and 1.92 % of the respondents operated on large scale (26 ha and above) for gum arabic and other tree crops respectively. Also, 63.46 % of respondents practiced intercropping gum arabic with some other crops. The profitability analyses show that 2, 725,000.00 and 2, 263,700.00 were realised as total revenue from gum arabic and the other tree crops respectively. This gave gross margins/kg of 27.65 and N 18. 87 respectively for gum arabic and the other tree crops. Their marketing efficiencies (ME) calculated were 57.87 % and 48.80 % respectively for gum arabic and the other tree crops. This implies that gum arabic was more profitable than the other tree crops, hence promoting gum arabic production will aids in poverty alleviation in the study area