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Economics Of Vegetable Production
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The shade netting determines the commercial value of crop, including
yield, product quality, and rate of maturation (Shahaket al., 2004).
Poor head formation, leaf twisting, early bolting, and reduced yields
occurred when leafy vegetables were grown under hot, high-sunlight
conditions without shade net (Sajjapongse and Roan, 1983). Water stress
caused by high evapo-transpirative demand, and high air and soil
temperatures, appear to be the main causes of poor crop productivity of
leafy crops in low-latitude regions (Wolff and Coltman, 1990). In
Nigeria, small scale irrigation systems have gone a long way to support
dry season farming of crops all over the country. Irrigation farming is
relatively low in Nigeria and Africa as a whole, with irrigated area
estimated at only 6 percent of total cultivated area, compared with 37
percent of Asia and 14 percent for Latin America (FAOSTAT 2009).
Svendsen and Sangi (2009) observed that more than two-third of existing
irrigated area is concentrated in five countries namely Egypt,
Madagascar, Morocco, South Africa, and Sudan. Giving that irrigated
crops yields are more than double of rain fed yields in Africa
(Liangzhiet al., 2010), it is important to invest on irrigation
developments with particular focus on locations and technologies with
greatest potential for irrigation. The effort of the Federal Government
of Nigeria, with the support of World Bank and the African Development
Fund to develop irrigation systems in the country started with the
approval of the implementation of the National FADAMA Development
Project (2008- 2016). Dry season production of vegetables is common
along the river banks that cut across villages, towns, and cities in
Nigeria. Therefore in Yewa North Local Government where the research
will be carried out, one of the major activities to be conducted will be
to determine the profitability of vegetable production as well as the
factors militating against vegetable production among others.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Nigeria
as a country is unable to meet its domestic requirements for
vegetables, fruits, floriculture, herbs and spices, dried nuts and
pulses. Between 2009 and 2010, Nigeria imported a total of 105,000
metric tonnes of tomato paste valued at over 16 billion naira to bridge
the deficit gap between supply and demand in the country (Food and
Agricultural Organization, 2006). Kalu in 2013, attributed this
situation to socio-economic constraint surrounding the key actors in the
tomato value chain, institutional weaknesses and declining agricultural
research. Vegetables are also highly perishable as they start to lose
their quality right after harvest and continued throughout the process
until it is consumed (Kohl and Uhl, 1985). Hence, vegetable productions
are risky investment activities.
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