Assessment of Women Participation in Vegetable Production Activities in ADP, Zone III, Taraba State, Nigeria

The study Assessed Women Participation in Vegetable Production Activities in ADP, Zones III, Taraba State, Nigeria. The Specific objectives were to describes the socio-economic characteristics of women vegetable farmers; identify the types of vegetables production activities participated by women; identify the types of vegetable mostly produced by women farmers; assess the level of participation of women in vegetable production activities and identify the problems affecting women participation in vegetable production in the study area. Null hypothesis was formulated that, there is no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristic of women vegetable farmers and their participation. Primary data were obtained from 182 respondents using multi- stage purposive and simple random techniques. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression model was used to test the hypothesis formulated. The result of the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents revealed that majority of the respondents were young adult of less than 51 years of age, most of the respondents had acquired formal education and had large household size. All the women farmers were smallholder farmers cultivating less than 4 hectares of farmland. The result on the types of 2 vegetable farming activities carried out by women farmers in the study area shows that majority (98.35%) of them were involved in planting of vegetable, 95.60% of the respondents were engaged in land preparation\ tillage, 89.56% of the respondents participated in harvesting among others. The common vegetables produced by women in the area were identified as; okro 90.66%, spinach 74.18%, pumpkin 67.63%, fluted pumpkin 59.34%, moringa 56.59% among others. The findings further shows that women farmers highly involved in vegetable farming activities like land preparation/tillage X̅ = 3.2, planting X̅ =3.7, weeding X̅ = 3.5 and harvesting X̅=3.5. The Logit regression analysis results reveals that educational level, household size, farming experience and income of women farmers have positive relationship with their level of participation in vegetable production. The major problems affecting women participation in vegetable production were identified as; inadequate funds 91.21%, high cost of input 76.37%, poor pricing of vegetables 68.68%, and problem of soil erosion 69.23% among others. It was recommended that women farmers should form or join cooperative societies in order to get financial support from government, NGOs and formal financial institutions to boost vegetable production in the study area. Also, government should subsidize the price of farm inputs in order to make them accessible and affordable to women farmers. In the same vein, better access of women to agricultural extension services should be emphasized.