Horticultural services in Nigeria

Horticultural crop production creates jobs. On average it provides twice the amount of employment per hectare of production compared to cereal crop production (Ali et al., 2002). The move from cereal production towards high-value horticulture crops is an important contributor to employment opportunities in developing countries (Joshi et al., 2003). The horticultural commodity chain is also longer and more complex than the cereal crop one and as a result job opportunities are more abundant (Temple, 2001). Women have the most to benefit from the increasing importance of horticulture in rural economies. Women, in general, play a much more significant role in horticultural crop production compared to starchy staple crops. Throughout the developing countries of Africa, women play a dominant role in the production of horticultural crops and cultivate more than half of the total smallholdings. Besides creating jobs on the farm, the horticultural sector also generates off-farm employment, especially for women. This is the case for export and value-added processing industries, which are important sectors of the economy of Nigeria. Since horticultural production is very labor-intensive, landless laborers also benefit from the new employment opportunities created by horticultural crop production. These jobs usually provide more income than jobs obtained by the laborers in most other sectors