Irrigation Technology and Technical and Resource-Use Efficiencies in Smallholder Urban Vegetable Farming

ABSTRACT

Use of efficient irrigation technologies is necessary to increase output of production from farms in or near urban settings. Levels of technical and resource-use efficiency in urban vegetable production with and without motorized irrigation were assessed. Cluster sampling was used to obtain information from 142 smallholder urban vegetable farmers in Lagos State, Nigeria. Of the respondents, 18.3% used motorized pumps and 81.7% used manual irrigation with watering cans. Of those, 61.5% and 35.3% of motorized pump and manual irrigation users, respectively, had grown crops on their land continuously for more than 5 years. A stochastic frontier model indicated that quantities of irrigation (P < 0.01) and pesticides (P < 0.10) positively affected vegetable output; amount of fertilizer used (P < 0.05) negatively influenced productivity. Urban vegetable growers operated at a decreasing return to scale (0.5284). The inefficiency model indicated that male producers (P < 0.01) were more technically efficient than their female counterparts. Technical education (P < 0.10) and years of urban vegetable farming experience (P < 0.01) improved producer technical efficiency. Urban vegetable farming needs to be more technically efficient to increase profitability.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural production
• Overutilization
• Underutilization
• Water supply