Financial Returns of Maize and Bean Production under Selected Tillage Practices in Semi-arid Area of Mwala Sub County, Kenya

Abstract

An on-farm experiment was carried out to assess the short term financial returns over four cropping seasons of selected tillage practices and cropping systems in semi-arid Mwala Sub County of Kenya. The tillage treatments were Disc Ploughing (DP), Disc Ploughing and Harrowing (DPH), Ox-ploughing (OX), Subsoiling – Ripping (SSR), Hand hoeing with Tied Ridges (HTR), and Hand hoeing (H) only. There were three cropping systems of Sole Maize (SM), Sole Bean (SB), and Maize - Bean intercrop (M + B), which were investigated in a Split-Plot Design with four replications. Input and output prices were obtained from the local markets and used to compute the financial returns. Across the tillage practices, higher net returns were realized in DPH (USD 1165), DP (USD 1014), and SSR (USD 866). In the cropping systems, the intercrop (USD 1051) and sole bean (USD 954) reported higher benefits than sole maize (USD 692). Based on marginal analysis, it is economically viable to recommend the SSR with sole bean systems to farmers in Mwala Sub County as it produced the higher BCR (> 2) and an MRR (> 100 %) which is comfortable to most farmers.