ABSTRACT

Cocoyams (Colocasia and Xanthosoma spp.) are stem tubers that are widely cultivated in both the tropical nd subtropical regions of the world. Among seven species of Colocasia' (taro) which originated from Asia and about forty species mostly grown in West Africa are Colocasia esculenta and Xanthosoma sagittfolium (Purseglove, 1972; Irvine, 1969; Vickery and Vickery, 1979;Ibe and Iwueke, 1984; Arene and Okpala, 1981). Taro is produced mostly in Africa especially in Nigeria (Howeler et al, 1992). They are an important crop in Hawaii, Japan, Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria (Iwuoha and Kalu 1994). It is mainly cultivated by peasant farmers especially in Nigeria (Knipscheer and Wilson 1980). Cocoyam has been related with yam and cassava as well as assorted vegetable in homead gardens (Okwuowulu et al., 2000). Cocoyam ranks third in importance after yam, and cassava in extent of production among the root and tuber crops of economic value in Nigerian. An indirect  relationship with economic efficiency anc were, significant at 1% level as well as membership of cooperative societies at 10% level. Allocative efficiency was found to be positively related to farming experience and significant at 10% level including fertilizer use and credit access at 5% level. Education and farm size had an indirect relationship with allocative efficiency and were significant at 1% level, while age was significant at 5% level. The results showed that farmers were not fully technically, allocative and economically efficient. They would also enjoy a cost savings of about 12.24% to achieve technical efficiency, 32.90% to be allocative efficient and 39.70% to be economically efficient. The null hypotheses of full technical, allocative and economic efficiencies were rejected which implied that there is room for efficiency growth. The test of significance using ANOVA showed that they were significant differences in the technical, allocative and economic efficiencies among zones.