Determinants of level of market participation among vegetable farmers in Lagos State, Nigeria

Market participation offers benefits in terms of income and opportunities for rural employment to farmers. However, due to inconsistent production, resource-limited farmers cannot produce a stable amount of output yearly and as a result they cannot acquire contracts with traders in the market. Therefore, this study examined the level of market participation by selected vegetable farmers in Lagos State, Nigeria using a multi-stage sampling technique. Purposive sampling was the first stage while the second stage was random selection of 70 farmers and lastly the sample selection model of vegetable marketed. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, market participation index (MPI) and probit model. Using the threshold of MPI value, 0.8-1.0 represents high level market participants and 0.1-0.79 low. The result showed that female farmers (55.7%) were more with mean age of 48.1 +/- 8.53 years and were mostly married (88.6%) with household size between 5 and 8 persons (77.1%). Most (65.7%) cultivate less than 0.5 ha. Considering the market attributes, 71.4% were members of farmers' association, 52.9% had no access to credit, 60% owned communication assets, 60% owned transport equipment and only 32.9% had high level market participation. The regression result revealed that age (p<0.10), marital status (p<0.10), farm size (p<0.05), group marketing (p<0.01) and access to credit (p<0.05), significantly determine probability of high level market participation. To improve the level of market participation of vegetable farmers, farmland, access to credit and group marketing should be focused by the relevant policy makers, government and stakeholders in agriculture. Therefore, it is recommended that group marketing should be encouraged by all the tiers of government, policy on access to credit by real farmers to be formulated and implemented by the relevant government agency and land reform act should be reviewed to allow access to land by famers for increased output and high market participation.