Vegetables as a group of horticultural crops are important for their contribution as an income support to a large proportion of the rural households. However, enhancing vegetable farmers to reach markets and actively engage in the markets is a key challenge influencing vegetable production in Swaziland. The perishable nature of vegetables necessitates effective marketing channels. The aim of this paper was to investigate factors affecting farmers' choice of marketing channels using survey data gathered during the 2011 production season. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected vegetable farmers. Descriptive and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used. The results indicated that age of the farmer, quantity of baby corn produced and level of education were significant predictors of the choice to sell vegetables to NAMBoard market channel instead of selling to other-wholesale market channel. The age of the farmer, distance from production area to market, membership in farmer organization and marketing agreement were significant determinants of the choice to use non-wholesale market channel over other-wholesale market channel. It is therefore important to promote collective action as an institutional vehicle for linking farmers to agribusiness supply chains. Farmers should establish networks since they aid in sharing knowledge, farmers can improve produce grades as required by market.

Vegetables are not only beneficial for their contribution to the share of agriculture in the economy of Swaziland, but also have a significant probability to compete where there are fewer government regulations and restrictions in the economy. Currently, the local demand for vegetables is higher than local production and hence the gap is filled by imports from South Africa. At the NAMBoard's fresh produce market, only 11 percent of the vegetables are from local production and the rest come from South Africa. The study aimed to identify factors affecting productivity and profitability of vegetable production. A two-stage sampling technique was used to collect data from 100 vegetable farmers. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for data analysis. The results showed that the factors that significantly affected productivity of vegetable farmers were access to credit, selling price, fertiliser quantity, distance to market and gender of the farmer. For example, the selling price of carrot had a positive relationship with the productivity of vegetable farmers, suggesting that when the selling price of carrot increase by one unit, all else equal, the quantity of carrot produced would increase by 0.417 kilogrammes. The determinants of profitability of vegetable production were level of education, land under vegetable production and type of marketing agency. For example, with an additional year of education, profit would increase by E0.304. Policy makers should come up with policies that would improve productivity of vegetable farmers through the provision of seminars and workshops where farmers would acquire more training on vegetable production. This should enable them to increase the average yield of vegetables produced per hectare, hence profitability.

The total consumption of fresh vegetables in Swaziland is estimated around 40,000 tonnes per year and this translate into 40 kg per capita consumption per year. Individuals who are not economically challenged consume above the annual per capita of 40 kg in contrast to a poor individuals living in rural areas, who consume less than the per capita vegetables. The study sought to describe the performance of vegetable vegetables supply chain in Swaziland. A descriptive research design was used in the study and data were collected using personal interviews from 100 randomly selected vegetable farmers. Data were analysed using market margins and marketing channel analysis to identify existing marketing channels used by vegetable farmers. The revealed marketing channels that producers used to obtain attractive prices and a higher share of the consumer price. The largest producer's share was obtained through direct sale to consumers. Channels that included restaurants had high total gross margins and low producer's share of the consumer price. The concern for issues on post-harvest and marketing should form an integral part of policy development and research programmes and also the public and private sectors should facilitate contractual arrangements for vegetables farmers. Commercialising vegetable production should not be overemphasised because it encourages farmers to be market oriented as opposed to production oriented. Farmers need to form cooperatives in order to assist in bargaining of prices within the vegetable supply chain.