ANALYSIS OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS AND POST-HARVEST LOSS STORAGE FACILITIES USED BY VEGETABLE CROPS VALUE CHAIN ACTORS IN ADAMAWA STATE, NIGERIA

The study was carried out on analysis of socio-economic characteristics and post-harvest loss storage facilities used by vegetable crops value chain actors in Adamawa State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 526 respondents (210 farmers, 89 wholesalers, 128 retailers and 99 processors). Data were collected using structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that majority (96.70%) of the vegetable tomato, pepper and okra farmers were female, about 98% were male wholesalers,76.60% were male retailers and at processors level, majority (78.80%) were male. The marital status showed that, 90.50% of the farmers were married, for the wholesalers, 97.80% were married, for the retailers about 90% were married and at processors level, 86.90% were married. The results also, revealed that, 66.70% of the farmers were into farming as their major occupation. Similarly, 33.70% of the wholesalers were engaged in marketing of different types of vegetable crops as their occupation and 52.30% of the retailers were into marketing of different crops. Mean age of farmers was 40.20 years with minimum age of 19.00 years and maximum age of 68.00 years with a standard deviation of 9.90. For the wholesalers’, the mean age was 44.50 years, the maximum and minimum years were 73.00 years and 22.00 years, respectively, within a standard deviation was 10.25. The minimum household size is 1.00 and maximum is 22.00 persons with a standard deviation is 4.26. Similarly, for the wholesalers, the result shows that the household size was 8 persons with a minimum of 1 and maximum of 32 persons with standard deviation of 57.00.  The minimum farming experience was 2.00 years and the maximum was 49.00 years with standard deviation of 7.29. Also, for the wholesalers, the result shows that, the mean marketing experience was 14.00 years with minimum of 3.00 years, maximum of 37.00 years and standard deviation of 8.12. The result revealed that, for the farmers, the mean annual income was ₦240,811.90 with the minimum annual income of ₦7,500 and maximum annual income of ₦1,100,000, with standard deviation of 217,09 .87. Also, for the wholesalers, the result shows that the mean annual income was ₦ 99,213.48 with minimum annual income of ₦20,000, and maximum annual income of ₦4,000,000 with standard deviation of 145,909.79. The findings showed that 72.86% of the farmers used open field (or open place) to store their harvested vegetable crops usually under tree shades temporarily before taken it to the market for sale. The mean distance that will take farmers to sell their vegetable crops was 16.89 km with standard deviation of 0.34 and range of 2.00. The study concluded that it takes a minimum of 1.00 day and a maximum of 2.00 days with the mean of 1.32 day for the retailers to sell their vegetable crops immediately when they purchased to consumers. It was recommended for provision of sustainable good storage facilities to the actors in the post-harvest chain by the government and stakeholders.