Profitability of Watermelon Production Diversification Strategy: Evidence from Smallholder Farmers in Taraba State, Nigeria

The profitability of a watermelon production diversification plan for smallholder farmers in Taraba State, Nigeria, was investigated in this study. During the 2021 farming season, data for the study was collected from 355 randomly selected farms. Descriptive statistics and a farm budgeting approach were utilized to assess the data. The mean age of respondents was 42.3 years, 85.1% of them were married with an average household of six people. The majority (77.5%) of the respondents were educated with a mean farming experience of 8.6 years. On average, the respondents cultivate 4.2 hectares of land. The budgeting technique showed that a mixture of melon and cowpea has the highest average net farm income, followed by a mixture of melon and Bambara-nut while a mixture of melon and groundnut has the least average net farm income per hectare. The estimated gross margin and net farm income for all the enterprises stood at N 143618.11 and N 135051.13 respectively. The return on the owner's labour and management for all the enterprises is N 87801.13 and the return on investment is 127.58%. This demonstrates that the watermelon crop diversification strategies in the research area are profitable. A melon and cowpea combination was discovered to be more profitable than other firms. Because of this, it is suggested that a large amount of land be set aside for growing this crop.