Costs of producing Seed yam Tuber in aeroponics

24 Pages·2016·2.44 MB·English

Costs of producing Seed yam Tuber in
aeroponics: A case of Biocrops
Biotechnology Limited

Adebayo Akinola, Tahirou Abdoulaye, Djana Mignouna,

Norbert Maroya and Joseph Odusanya

World Congress on Root and Tuber Crops
Nanning, Guangxi, China, January 18-22, 2016
Outline
v Background
v Producing in aeroponics
v Cost effective attributes of aeroponics technology
v Methodology
ü Cost analysis
ü Sensitivity analysis
v Results
v Summary
Background
v  The single most important constraints undermining efforts to improve
productivity of roots and tubers is poor quality planting materials (Ezeta
2001; Gildermacher et al., 2009, Mignouna et al., 2012, Maroya et al.,
2014)
v  Most farmers in West Africa do not use certified seed yam. The use of
certified seed in roots and tubers is estimated to be less than 5 percent
(Hidalgo et al., 2009, Mignouna et al., 2014, Maroya et al., 2014)
v  Relative to area planted using certified seed accounts for just a tiny fraction
of total area planted.
v  Producing certified seed yams involves overcoming a complex
combination of technical, ecological, institutional and economic
constraints.
Background/2
•  Seed yam unlike cereals take time to produce
•  The process is prohibitive

•  Could results in most cases products in extremely limited supply and
of dubious quality
•  Main economic problem is their cost to end-users: Seed yam could
take up to 50% of the total production costs (Correa et al., 2009;
Mignouna et al., 2014)
•  To relax these constraints, new technologies developed and
employed in YIIFSWA projects include Temporary Immersion
Bioreactor and Aeroponics Systems
Aeroponics System
•  Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment
without the use of soil or an aggregate medium.
•  The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of aero- (air)
and ponos (labour)
•  The basic principle of aeroponic growing is to grow plants suspended in a
closed or semi-closed environment by spraying the Plant's dangling roots
and lower stem with an atomized or sprayed, nutrient-rich water solution.
•  The roots of the plant are separated by the plant support structure.
Often, closed-cell foam is compressed around the lower stem and inserted
into an opening in the aeroponics chamber, which decreases labor and
expense; for larger plants, trellising is used to suspend the weight
of vegetation and fruit.
Aeroponics system
v Ideally, the environment is kept
free from pests and disease so
that the plants may grow
healthier and more quickly than
plants grown in a medium.
Cost effective attributes of aeroponics system
•  Increased oxygen to plant
–  the increased aeration of nutrient solution delivers more oxygen to
plant roots, stimulating growth
•  Disease-free cultivation
–  limit disease transmission since plant-to-plant contact is reduced and
each spray pulse can be sterile
•  Greater control of plant environment
–  allows more control of the environment around the root zone, as, unlike
other plant growth systems
•  Improved nutrient feeding
–  A variety of different nutrient solutions can be administered to the root
zone using aeroponics without needing to flush out any solution or
matrix in which the roots had previously been immersed
•  More user-friendly
–  The design of an aeroponic system allows ease of working with the
plants
•  It is expected to be cost effective
Methodology
•  Data gathering
–  Fixed and variable costs elements were established
with the manager and other experts
–  Data were collected on cost elements from the
Biocrops Nigeria Limited
–  Supplementary data was collected from IITA-Oracle
database

•  Qualitative data were also collected on ease of
technology, requirement for equipment and inputs,
qualified personnel, possibility of staggered harvests,
screenhouse area, effective planting area, etc
Cost analysis
v  A detailed cost analysis was conducted for the aeroponic technology
based on all relevant indicators as described by Espinosa et al.,
(1996) and adapted by Mateus_Rodriguez et al., (2013), Mignouna
et al., (2013). Total production cost (TPC, US $ per season) involves
fixed costs and variable costs.
ü  Fixed costs include investment in infrastructure of screenhouse and
production modules as well as materials and equipment
ü  These costs were considered for a variable lifetime (years) and
amortized during agricultural season
ü  Variable costs included inputs of direct use, water, electricity,
maintenance and other running costs.
Economic projections
v  The cost of the mini-tuber (C,US $ per unit) was calculated using the
formula C=TPC/Q, where Q is the quantity of mini-tubers produced.
v  For an estimation of gross income (GI, US $), an estimate of sale value was
used. This was varied for sensitivity analysis. The net profit (NP, US $) was
calculated following Maldonado et al., (2007), NP =GI-TPC and the
Profitability was obtained applying the formula, P =NP/TPC*100
v  With the figure of TPC, and the estimates of GI and NP, the cashflows were
established considering a productive activity of 5 years.
v  The projected cash flow of the productive activity were then used to define
financial viability: Net present value (NPV, US $), internal rate of return
(IRR, %), payback period (in years), and benefit-cost ratio.