Are young maize and rice farmers' profit efficient? : a gender differential analysis

The recent trend of development policy makes emphasis on gender disparity in performance, especially in the agricultural sector whereby women partake and play a crucial role and their contribution to the sector cannot be overemphasized. However, the contention is whether such disparity in performance exists typically at old age or whether it exists at youth age as well. A representative household survey with structured questionnaires and assistance from extension agents who served as enumerators make use of multistage sampling techniques to collect datasets from 1019 young producer-marketers involved in the two value chains from three regions of Cameroon including Far North, North, and West Regions. Findings show that the mean profit efficiency for young males is 0.53, and 0.61 while for young females are 0.59, and 0.69 respectively. The result found a significant difference (.001; .002) in the profit efficiency among young males and females rice and maize producer-marketers due to socioeconomic and financial factors such as household size, cost of transport, tax paid, amount of credit received, membership to the association, cost of labour, cost of seed, cost of herbicides and cost of fertilizer. Findings indicate that there is a need to set up agrochemical and improved seed varieties subsidy schemes with special attention given to young female rice and maize producer-marketers given that cost of agrochemical and improved seed varieties significantly affect their profitability. Young females engaged in the rice and maize value chains could benefit from setting up labour-sharing arrangements for mutual help.