Determinants de la rentabilite de la production de plants greffes d’anacardier au Benin

Cashew Productivity in Benin is very low due to the poor performance of the plant material used. To meet the ever-increasing needs of cashew producers in quality plant material, recent years interventions have focused on the development and organization of the seed system for a large scale production of quality grafted cashew trees. This research analysed the financial profitability of cashew seed production as well as the determinants. Data were collected from 111 cashew seed growers carefully selected through network sampling in the main production areas in Benin. The operating account approach was used to estimate the net margin and the Profit / Total Cost ratio. The binary logit logit model was adopted to determine the factors determining the Profit / Total Cost of Production ratio. The results showed that the net margin was on average 282.50 FCFA / plant for producers of grafted cashew trees against 110.54 FCFA / plant for producers of ungrafted plants. Also, an investment of 1 FCFA in the production of cashew trees generates 0.926 FCFA for seedlings of ungrafted plants and 1.759 FCFA for seedlings of grafted plants, indicating that the production of grafted cashew trees is financially more profitable than the production of ungrafted plants. Furthermore, the profitability of cashew seed production is positively correlated with gender, residence status, production of cashew seedlings as the main activity, formal education and the type of seeds produced. On the other hand, this profitability was negatively influenced by membership in a seed organization. These results recommend the adoption of the production of grafted cashew seedlings with an integrated production system based on the use of adequate infrastructure and management tools by all seed companies.