Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Economics

The Value Chain (VC) of agricultural products impacts on their commercial viability. Despite being the world’s largest producer of cassava, Nigeria hardly features in its world trade. Domestic production is mostly used as staple food and does not process into value-added products like High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF). Competitive and comparative advantage of actors in the production of HQCF in South-western Nigeria is therefore the subject of this study.  A four-stage multistage sampling technique was used to investigate the efficiencies of cassava farmers. Mapping surveys for all the areas of production and marketing of HQCF were used. A total of 381 valid actors (311 cassava producers, 18 processors and 26 marketers) were used. The resulting data were analysed using descriptive statistics and a policy analysis matrix. Age, household size, and farming experience of the HQCF actors were 48.3±8.46, 47.6±8.08, 44.1±6.79 years, 6.91±2.15, 5.26±1.03, 7.08±2.47 members, and 21.7±10.81, 8.4±2.11, 10±1.38 years, respectively. The HQCF VC actors were competitive with PCR of 0.12 (producers), 0.03 (processors) and 0.39 (marketers). Similarly, the actors had a comparative advantage with DCR of 0.05 (producers), 0.75 (processors) and 0.15 (marketers). The PAM analysis results indicated that given the most recent technologies, cost of inputs and outputs prices and the predominant policies, cassava farmers, HQCF processors and HQCF marketers all had comparative edges and competitive advantage in the production of cassava, HQCF production and HQCF marketing. Sensitivity analysis for cassava production, HQCF processing and HQCF marketing showed that a 10% increase among the actors in the value chain improved production, productivity and comparative and competitive advantage in the study region.