Food Accessibility, Distribution and Production Constraints of Urban Farmers in Ikorodu Metropolis, Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study critically examined food accessibility, distribution and production constraints of urban farmers in Ikorodu Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria. Data was collected using well-structured personally administered questionnaire and interview schedule from 150 urban farmers in the area using multi- stage sampling technique. Data was analyzed using both descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, means, standard deviation and rank correlation coefficient was used to test the hypothesis. The urban farmers in this study area had over 8years of basic education, mean family size of 7, farming experience of 12.8years, farm size of 1.94ha, an average proportion (40%) produce solely for market/sales with monthly income of N22.900 and a large proportion (86.7%) judge urban farming as profitable. The urban farmers used wholesalers ( = 2.22; SD = 0.17), retailers ( = 2.34; SD = 0.31), direct sales in market ( = 2.30; SD = 0.19), and farm-gate middlemen ( = 3.12; SD = 1.00) in the distribution of farm produce. Furthermore, lack of access to credit, access to inputs, poor storage facilities, lack of skilled labour, limited access to land were major production constraints confronting the urban farmers in the study area. Relationship between socio- economic characteristics of respondents and their production constraints reveal education to be negatively significant to lack of credit, lack of access to land and lack of extension services. It was recommended that extension services intensify educational programmes and activities among the urban farmers especially as related to storage of agricultural products and market intelligence to know where agricultural goods are needed as well as helping to curb the role of farm gate middlemen.