Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 23 ISSUE 3
Written by Olutope Stephen OJO, Temidayo Gabriel APATA

The study examined the profitability of vegetable farming during and after the Covid-19 lockdown in Southwest Nigeria. It specifically addressed the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers, the estimated cost, and the returns of vegetable production both during and after the COVID-19 lockdown determined the factors influencing production of vegetables. A Multistage random sampling was employed in the study. The first stage was a random selection of three (3) States from the six (6) States in South West, Nigeria. Three (3) Local Government Areas were randomly chosen from each selected State. Two (2) communities were sampled randomly from each of the Local Government Areas selected and random sampling of fifteen (15) farmers from each community, giving a total of 270 respondents. Descriptive statistics, Budgetary analysis and Ordinary least squares (OLS) Regression Analysis were applied to data collected. The result showed that majority (41.9%) of respondents were in the active age with the mean age of 42 years. Majority (67%) of the respondents were male with household size ranging between 4 and 6 persons. About (64.1%) were married with an average year of farming experience of 31 years. The profitability analysis revealed the net farm income realized during and after COVID-19 was N124,393.9 and N258,587.3 per hectare, respectively. According to the calculation of the gross margin, the value per hectare during and after COVID-19 was N146,219.8 and N270,374.4, respectively. During and after COVID-19, the Benefit Cost Ratio was 2.85 and 4.6 which indicate that for every one naira spent ,₦2.85 and ₦4.6 will be realized as revenue respectively, implying that vegetable production is profitable in the study area. Results of the regression(OLS) analysis showed the basic variables that significantly influenced profit generation during COVID-19 scenario are quantity of vegetable output, gender of the farmer, farmers year experience and cost of labour while variables that influenced profitability after COVID-19 are quantity of vegetable output, gender of the farmer, marital status, household size and access to credit. The study also revealed the major farmers’ perception about COVID-19 as it disrupted Supply chain of vegetables, caused harvest losses for vegetable farmers, reduced vegetable farmers’ income during the lockdown and income reduction was ranked 1_st among various perceptions observed. The study found that as the age of vegetable farmers increases, their profit decreases across all production scenarios, a policy that focuses on ways to attract and encourage young people who are agile and strong to start growing vegetables will help to boost technical efficiency and their income. Education should also be encouraged among vegetable farmers in the study area since the study revealed that education will enable them to adopt new technologies that will make them to have more profit from their production.

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