Profitability of Small Scale Dry Season Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Production in Adamawa State, Nigeria

This study was designed to analyze the profitability of small scale dry season tomato production in Adamawa state. The Primary data were collected from 200 tomato farmers, using multi stage sampling techniques in four local government areas spread across the four Adamawa Agricultural Development Programme (ADPs) zones of the state. The data collected were for 2011/2012 cropping season with the aid of well structured questioners. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive stati stics and budgetary analysis. The result indicates that majority of the respondents were male (85%) and married (76%) while most of them were in their active years, with family size of six people and above. Majority of the respondents (66.5%) have been in tomato production for 6 to 20 years and (71%) acquired their farm land through renting. Majority of farmers (63.6%) had no contact with extension workers while (80%) use their personal savings for production. Tomato production was found to be profitable with an estimated total cost of production and gross margin of N137,092.86 and N138,970.46 respectively. The study also identified the major constraints associated with tomato production to be attack by pest and disease, inadequate farm credit, poor storage and processing facilities while shortage/high cost of irrigation facilities been the least. The study therefore, recommends that immediate research to be conducted by research institutes to identify the course of high incident of pest and disease of tomato, input prices should be subsidized by public and private sectors and farmers should be educated on modern storage facilities to reduce excessive losses of tomato at storage