APPLICATION OF LINEAR PROGRAMMING AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS FOR OPTIMAL CROP PRODUCTION: A STUDY OF SELECTED LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS OF GOMBE STATE

Abstract

Statistics show that despite the continuous growth in the population of Nigeria and the percentage of the population that engage in agriculture, the contribution of agriculture to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has declined continuously. More so, the insufficiency of agricultural production to cater for the fast growing population has led to a four-times-imbalance in import/export of agricultural products in the country. While efforts by federal, state, local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), microfinance banks and other stakeholders are ongoing to improve agricultural productivity in the country, operation research and in particular linear programming has empirically proven to be a success factor in farm planning for optimal use of available resources for maximum returns in production units and income of farmers in many places. Gombe State is an agrarian state with the majority of her citizens engaging in agriculture. The main crops produced here are cereal and leguminous crops. The survey and exploratory research designs were used. Descriptive and inferential statistics were the techniques of data analysis. Application software employed were the excel-solver and SPSS.  For the Akko LGA, the results showed the optimal crop mix of benny seed and bambara nut in a 6:4 ratio (153 to 109 mudus) and that adopting this strategy could boost a farmer’s profit by 16.4%. The study recommended that a farmer in Akko LGA of Gombe State should focus on cultivating benny seed and bambara nut for commercial purposes while growing other crops minimally for personal use. For the Balanga LCA, the optimal crop mix identified was an 8:2 ratio of beans to guinea corn (315 mudus of beans to 81 mudus of guinea corn), which could increase the farmer’s profit by 264%. The study thus recommended that a farmer in Balanga LGA focus on growing beans and guinea corn in the recommended ratio for commercial purposes, while limiting the cultivation of other crops for personal use. The study also emphasized the need for increased support from government and other stakeholders to provide financial aid and resources to these farmers.