Comparative analysis of the economic returns to management in single crop, fish, poultry and an integrated farming system in Obudu, Cross River State

Abstract

A four year (2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019) field experiment was conducted to compare the economic returns to investment in single enterprise with integrated farming comprising of rice farm alongside with fish culture and poultry farm using mostly organic waste as feeds. In 2016 a rice farm was cultivated on a piece of land already procured for the experiment, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides were all applied. At maturity the rice was harvested, processed, bagged in 100kg bags and sold. Economic returns to management were calculated according to the methods of CIMMYT, (1988). In 2017, only fish farm was established, fed and harvested at maturity and sold to consumers. Economic returns to management were also calculated and recorded. In 2018, a poultry farm was established, 200 broilers were reared to maturity and sold, economic returns to management were calculated and recorded. Then in 2019, an integrated farm comprising rice farm, fish farm and poultry farm were all established in the same field. About 70% of the feeds used were organic waste collected mostly from poultry droppings. The silt from the pond was also used as fertilizer for the rice farm, while the rice bran was also fed to the poultry. The output from the farms were harvested and sold, and the economic returns to investment for each farm calculated. The result showed that the returns to investment were significantly (p<0.05) higher in integrated farming system than in the single enterprise farm, due to the low cost of production using low cost inputs in integrated farming compare to the use of high cost synthetic inputs in single enterprise. The paper therefore recommended that farmers should adopt integrated farming system with low cost inputs for higher profit than the single enterprise farming.