Efficiency of Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus Thunb.) Production Technologies in North Central Nigeria

This study is aimed at determining the efficiency of watermelon production technologies using profit model and Data Envelope Analyses. Primary data through structured questionnaire and interview were administered to 280 farmers. The result of the study shows that Conventional Watermelon Production (CWP) was more profitable ₦252,485.4 per ha compared to Scientific Watermelon Production (SWP) at a profit of ₦237,307.0 per ha. The energy use efficiency ratio of CWP at 1.49 was also higher compared to SWP which was 1.03. However, the output from scientific farms of 3014 pods as well as the scale efficiency of 0.81 was higher compared to the output and scale efficiency for the conventional farms of 2567 and 0.65 respectively. The result also indicates that scientific production system had a higher technical efficiency using Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes (CCR) model 0.73 and Banker, Charnes and Cooper (BCC) model 0.89 compared to conventional watermelon production technique with CCR and BCC of 0.59 and 0.73 respectively. The study also revealed that the scientific watermelon production system was more technically efficient and the output was higher than the conventional farming. Despite this, there is need to critically find a way of increasing energy parameters and technical efficiency in both production systems to move closer to energy optimum and efficiency frontier. This could be achieved by the integration of the two production systems to achieve low cost and efficient scientific inputs usage. On the other hand, watermelon farmers could also shift to semi-mechanized farming for higher output and to be more technically efficient.