A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE PROFITABILITY OF CHEESE PRODUCTION IN PLATEAU STATE
ABSTRACT
The study examined the profitability and technical efficiency of cheese producers in Plateau State, Nigeria. The State has a total number of 19 local government areas. Three of these local government areas were randomly selected, that is Langtang East, Jos South, and barkin ladi local government areas, from which four villages were randomly selected, which was followed by a random selection of ten cheese producers from each village, making a total of 120 respondents. Data were generated through the use of well structured questionnaires which were administered to the respondents and descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis and chi-square test were the analytical tools employed. The study showed that all the respondents were female with 88.3% married and 83.3% of the respondents derived their income primarily from cheese production. The study also showed that cheese production is profitable with a net farm income of N 15,295 per month. The fixed cost contributed less than 1% of the total cost while the cost of milk accounted for more than 70% of the total variable cost. It was also observed that the mean technical efficiency of the cheese producers was 97.49%, the most technically efficient cheese producer has 100.00% while the least technically efficient cheese producer has 46.45%. The study therefore shows that cheese production is profitable and the producers are highly technically efficient.