Evaluating Competition Constraint on Land Accessibility by Urban Crop Farmers in Lagos

Abstract

The study evaluated the constraint of competition on urban crop farming in Lagos with a view to identifying issues that must be resolved to facilitate practitioners’ land accessibility in the metropolis. Crop farmers in seven out of ten communities where urban crop farming was found to be thriving within the metropolis were selected through multi-stage sampling which involved both purposive and simple random samplings and were administered with structured questionnaires. All the farming communities were delineated by the Lagos State Agricultural Development Authority (LSADA). Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics while linear regression analysis was used to test the formulated research hypothesis. The study showed that farmers were forced out (19.5%) of their locations, 10.3% vacated voluntarily, 1.4% left due to high rents, 2.9% unidentified and 67.8% were missing values. Urban farmers in the study area were, however, found not to be affected by competition and high rents as they were occupying marginal lands that did not attract other competing uses. The regression analysis showed that competition constraint accounted for 3.5% of farmers’ productivity establishing that competition with other uses significantly affected urban farmers’ productivity as they were consigned to marginal lands. The study therefore concluded that government should support/promote the activity by providing agricultural lands in designated areas of the metropolis for urban farming.