Assessment of small scale horticultural nursery enterprises in some selected Local Government Areas in Ibadan Metropolis, Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study assessed some selected small scale horticultural nursery enterprises in Ibadan metropolis. Data was collected through the use of well-structured questionnaires from 32 respondents and analysed using descriptive statistics and cost and return analysis. The result revealed that 93.7% of the respondents were male, 31.3% were between the ages of 31-40years with mean age of 43years,
84.4% were married, 75% had between 1-5 household size with a mean house size of 5 persons. About fifty three percent (53.1%) of them were involved in horticultural practices as their primary occupation, 46.8% had tertiary education, however, majority 93.7% of them had one form of formal education with 14.5% mean years of experience, 75% of them belong to horticultural associations,
81.2% source their credit through personal savings, majority (68.8%) rented their land through government, 50% source the seeds through other farmers while only 34.4% source their seeds through research institutions, categories of seedlings raised by the respondent are ornamental seedling (100%), forestry seedling (78.1%), medicinal seedling (65.6%) and agricultural seedling (81.3%) while Ixora (Ixora coccinea) (40.6%) was the most common species of seedling found in the nursery. On the average, the profit realized was ₦578, 925.00k per annum with Benefit cost ratio (BCR) of 4.8. Major problems confronting the enterprise were pest and insects, weeds, credit facilities, weather, transportation, low marketing patronage, cost of agrochemicals as well as availability of quality seeds.

Keywords: Assessment, Horticultural, Enterprise, Gross Margin, Oyo, Nigeria