Urban Vegetable Crop Production and Production Efficiency

Urban Farm DB summary

A sample survey of 242 urban vegetable farmers conducted through March 2006 examined production efficiency and its determinants in fadama agriculture — flood-plain cropping of short-duration crops on low-lying, seasonally flooded land — in urban southwestern Nigeria, using a stochastic frontier model. Mean farm size was 0.54 hectares and mean producer age was 42.6 years, while mean technical efficiency was only 74.36%, with the main sources of inefficiency identified as labor employment and the use of land and seed/cultivar resources; the most common crop combination was Telfaria occidentale, Amaranthus hybridus and Zea mays.