Abstract

Dry season vegetable production in Nigeria has become as important as income generating occupation that there are always shortages of suitable land for the numerous producers. Production is undertaken under irrigation and it is characterized by intense mixed cropping. Four major inputs are put into consideration apart from land allocation in vegetable production, they are: hired labor activities, fertilizer application, fueling of pumping machine and the cost of vegetable seed. The paper discusses the cost and returns structure in the production of four major vegetables in Saki West, Atisbo and Kajola Local Government in Oke-Ogun area of Oyo State. The vegetables include Amarantus, Ewedu, Osun and Tomato. The aim is to maximize the profit incurred by the vegetable farmers by identifying the ratio at which each crop should be produced using linear programming (LP) approach. The result shows that the famers should be producing Ewedu and Osun in ratio 3:2 and the production of Amarantus and Tomato should be ignored in the study location in order to improve productivity, food security and income for the farmers.

Key words: Profit maximization, dry season, vegetable, linear programming, decision variable, parameter.