Analysis of the impact of production technology and gender on under-utilised indigenous vegetables production in south-western Nigeria

Abstract

We quantified the impact of new production technologies on total land area allocated to production of six (ugu, igbagba, tete atetedaye, woorowo, ogunmo and odu) selected high-premium under-utilised indigenous vegetables (UIVs) in south-western Nigeria. Leaf yields and accruable returns were estimated by comparing the data for these parameters at the commencement of the project in 2011 (through a baseline survey) with the same set of parameters after three years (in 2013) of project implementation. Through a structured interview and focus group discussion involving 134 randomly selected respondents (59 women and 75 men) from the 350 UIVs cooperative members in the rainforest and derived savanna agroecologies in four states (Oyo, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti) of south-western Nigeria, we studied the gender gap between male and female farmers with respect to access to productive farm resources. The data obtained were analysed using appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics. On average across south-western Nigeria in 2013, areas of 7.67, 7.0, 5.6, 1.9, 2.83 and 0.72 ha were planted to ugu, igbagba, tete atetedaye, woorowo, ogunmo and odu, respectively, compared to areas in 2011 of 0.3, 0.2, 0.6, 0, 0.32 and 0 ha, respectively. Yield analyses showed that the productivity of ugu, igbagba, tete atetedaye, woorowo, ogunmo and odu increased by 62%, 67%, 60%, 100%, 64% and 100%, respectively, as a result of the seeding rate technology applied between 2011 and 2013. More than 80% of the male and female respondents were aged between 31 and 60 years and possessed mean UIV farming experience of 18.7 years (males) and 13.4 years (females). The average farm area was 3.4 ha for men and 2.8 ha for women. The difficulty in accessing agrochemicals, modern technologies and marketing outlets was skewed towards females. We identified inadequate finance, lack of storage facilities, marketing outlets, multiple household responsibilities, lack of technology, lack of inputs and gender inequality as some of the problems associated with UIV production as perceived by both male and female respondents. Age (r = 0.290) and farming experience (r = 0.216) of female UIVs farmers, and age (r = 0.300), farming experience (r = 0.226), education (r = 0.363) and income (r = 0.224) of male UIV farmers were positively correlated with access to production resources (p ≤ 0.01). In conclusion, there is a need to drop policies that are less favourable to rural women and to focus on the appreciation of their role as producers of wealth, and additionally to strengthen the network of public services in rural areas, including education and welfare services.

Towards sustainable vegetable production around agro-pastoral dams in Northern Benin: current situation, challenges and research avenues for sustainable production and integrated dam management

“…The gendered difference observed in the cropping systems may be due to differences in access to land. In fact, men had larger plot sizes compared to women, as it was also reported in vegetable production systems in Buea, Cameroon [26] and in southwestern Nigeria [30]. This supports the general gender-differentiated resource base of African farming systems [29,31].…”

“…Although we did not assess how gender affects the perception of the constraints (e.g. Ngome and Foeken [26] and Alao et al [30]), we found a strong and significant agreement on the ranking of the most important constraints among the respondents, indicating that gender did not considerably affect the perception of the constraints in our study. In addition, contrary to previous investigations in southern Benin and elsewhere in West Africa that reported access to land as a major constraint for vegetable production, especially in urban areas [9,11,12,37,38], we found that land access is not a major challenge for vegetable producers around APDs, even in the more urbanized study area.…”

“…These constraints have been reported previously in vegetable production systems in Benin, Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa [8,9,26,30,37]. Although we did not assess how gender affects the perception of the constraints (e.g.…”

“…This may be due to difference in knowledge of farming practices and in access to information and the ability to act upon it [26,31]. In fact, female farmers are less likely to access agricultural information and knowledge through extension services, or receive very limited access to quality services and agricultural technology information compared to their male counterparts [30,33]. Differences in access to inputs may also play a role in the gendered nature of vegetable production around APDs [26,29].…”

Meal Cultures - A New Concept in Food Security Debates on African Leafy Vegetables in Kenya and East Africa

“…Gender studies with regard to meal culture of AIV are not explored and published. Few publications that have mentioned gender issues within their research papers [102][103][104]33,70], do not go deep into addressing changes in gender power relations and new gender arrangements.…”