Abstract
Crop losses, especially along the post-harvest food supply chain, have been identified as one of the major causes of food shortage problems in most developing countries and in Nigeria in particular. Vegetable farmers such as those that grow tomatoes often record great amount of produce loss which translates to a waste of resources, a reduction in their income and ultimately their welfare. This study examined the effects of post-harvest losses on the welfare of 107 tomato farmers in Ogbomosho selected through a multi-stage sampling procedure. The analytical tools used in the study include descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis, Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and regression model. Results revealed that majority of the tomato farmers were male, married and had no formal education. The average gross margin values of N3, 229.45 and N72, 905.80 were obtained with and without post-harvest losses for the tomato farmers respectively. This implied a 95.5% post-harvest loss incurred by the farmers. Household size and the total value of post-harvest losses were found to significantly affect the per-capita income and hence welfare of the tomato farmers negatively. The study recommends that farmers engaged in tomato production be adequately trained on post-harvest crop handling techniques. In addition, priority should be given to investment in post-harvest processing technologies and establishment of processing industries especially in the production areas. Key words: Post-harvest loss, tomato, welfare, farmers, Nigeria.
Highlights
Global efforts in the fight against hunger to raise farmers’income and improve food security especially in the world’s poorest countries should give priority to the issue of crop losses (FAO, 2010)
More than three-quarters of the respondents were males while females accounted for the remaining 24.3%. This implies that tomato farming is dominated by male farmers and could be attributed to the cultural setting of the area in which land is mainly allocated to males while females are deprived of direct land ownership
More than half (52.3%) of the respondents were below 41 years of age with the mean age of all the interviewed farmers being 31 years, implying that a good number of the farmers in the area are in their economic active age
Summary
Income and improve food security especially in the world’s poorest countries should give priority to the issue of crop losses (FAO, 2010). This is due to the adverse effects of crop losses on food quality, environment and generally on economic development. About one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year (FAO, 2011). 30 to 40% of the food crops produced in the world is never consumed as a result of damage, rotting as well as pest and diseases which affect crops after harvest (Meena et al, 2009). Post-harvest losses have been identified as one of the determinants of food problem in most developing countries
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