In Niger, pearl millet/cowpea is the most largely used cropping system for diverse reasons. A study was conducted in 2021 and 2022 with the objective of confirming past reports of land efficiency benefit of the pearl millet/cowpea intercropping system, and to document it’s the differential response to fertilizer application with and without subsidy. The experiment was conducted with six treatments combination of three cropping systems (pearl millet and cowpea sole crops, pearl millet/cowpea intercrop), and two fertilizer levels (F0 and F1 100 kg ha-1 NPK to all the crops and 50 kg ha-1 urea applied on pearl millet. The pearl millet/cowpea system had a better performance during the lower rainfall season of 2021 with a LER of 1.20, while during the higher rainfall season of 2022 the intercropping system perform essentially equal to the sole cropping systems. Without fertilizer subsidies the pearl millet/cowpea system had a VCR below 2 in 2022 indicating that there will be no return to fertilizer without government subsidy. Although higher yields and greater responses to fertilizer were found for pearl millet and cowpea sole crops, often producers will prefer intercropping to obtain higher land use efficiency, produce reliable yields, and produce more diverse end-use products

Keywords: Intercrop; sole crop; land equivalent ratio; value to cost ratio