Gender Participation of Orange Fleshed Sweet Potato Production Activities in FCT, Abuja, Nigeria

Abstract

Tena M. Barnabas, Helen D. Pam, Samson Olayemi Sennuga, Julius Ajah, Taiye O. Fadiji, Bankole Os-ho-Lagunju, Mary E. Iheonu and Funso O. Alabuja

Biofortified Orange Fleshed Sweet potato is rich in vitamin A and other minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus and copper. The analysis for this research was based on the field survey of OFSP farmers in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria conducted in 2023. Critical research and rudimentary data collection were used to gather data. The data were analyzed using a descriptive statistics and chi-square. Based on the descriptive analysis, most of the farmers were small scale farmers having a mean farm size of 2.3 ha and average farm experience of 7.8 years. Most of the farmers were in their productive ages 50-59 years and married couple with 6-10 family size. Almost all the farmers were con- strained by conflicts with herd’s men and lack of finance (98.3% and 98.5% respectively). Furthermore, the farmers were also constrained by high cost of labour, vines and transportation, unable to sell produce, access to clean vine, distance to sources of storage facilities, access to land and thieves invasion of farm. Using a chi-square to analyze the level of farmer’s participation in OFSP production activities, male farmers were predominantly involved in site selection, bush clearing, burning, harvesting, transportation, processing, and marketing and land tillage while the female OFSP farm- ers were predominantly involved in sowing, weeding, and storage and fertilizer application.

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