Original Contribution OPTIMAL FARM PLAN FOR VEGETABLE PRODUCTION UNDER FADAMA IN NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

This study determined an optimal enterprise combination for vegetable production under Fadama in north central Nigeria. The model considered both economic and environmental goals simultaneously in a composite objective function. The optimal farm plan gave a programme value of N 41802.8 as the total variable cost of production and recommended the production of only four out of the nine cropping enterprises included in the model. These enterprises are the Sole Onion, Sole Tomato, Sweet pepper/Tomato and Hot pepper/Tomato enterprises. However, an additional 0.22 hectares of land was used by the optimal plan in addition to the 0.74 hectares available. The optimal plan achieved 88 percent of the goals considered. The study concludes that an expansion of the land area for crop production under Fadama is critical to an improvement in the sustainability of vegetable production in north central Nigeria. Furthermore, the inclusion of environmental goals or considerations in farm decision making by Fadama farmers is not necessarily antagonistic to their profit maximization objective. The formulation of policies that would encourage land consolidation in the Fadama communities will be vital in enhancing the sustainability of crop production under Fadama.