Economic Evaluation of Tomato Sole and Tomato Onion Intercropping Systems of Smallholders in District Muzaffargarh, Pakistan

Abstract

The objective of this research was to conduct an economic evaluation of smallholders’ practices i.e tomatoonion intercropping (toi) and tomato sole cropping (ts). Primary farmer’s field-level data was used in the study. Resource use efficiency and financial profitability indicators were calculated for comparison of two tomato cultivation systems. A financial model based on a modified Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) approach was used as a method of research. The result indicates that 53 percent respondent adopts the tomato-onion intercropping system and remaining 47 percent respondents follows sole tomato system. Tomato-onion intercropping gave higher private profitability (US$. 1556/acre) with a benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of 2.35 compared to sole tomato with private profitability of US$.913 per acre with BCR 1.88. A higher BCR was found in tomato-onion intercropping than in the sole tomato cropping system. Tomato onion intercropping (toi) has more resource use efficiency with less Private Cost Ratio (PCR) value 0.30 as compared to tomato sole with PCR value 0.38. In conclusion, the tomato-onion intercropping system resulted in higher net income may be a viable option for smallholders to mitigate the economic risk of sole tomato cultivation. The result proved that the sole tomato cropping system is also economically viable however tomato-onion intercropping proved promising practice to minimize the economic risk of sole tomato crop. The findings have implicates that tomato-onion intercropping has the potential to increase the livelihoods of the smallholders in the study area.