Profitability of Market Garden Production in Southern Benin: Economic Index of Dewatering Systems on Farmers' Income

Water management is a real challenge in the market gardening sector. Then, dewatering systems are used for the efficient management of water in market gardening operations. The aim of this article is to evaluate the profitability of market gardening in the context of dewatering systems using (petrol motor pump, domestic gas motor pump and solar panel pump) compared with manual watering. Data were collected in 07 departments in southern Benin, covering 20 municipalities. A total of 1,600 growers were randomly selected after establishing a sampling frame of market gardeners in each municipality. The data concerned socio-demographic characteristics, prices and quantities of inputs, and outputs from market garden production. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample and then to highlight the economic profitability indices of each drainage system. The multinomial logistic regression model was used to analyse the factors influencing the choice of market gardeners for each system. The results show that market gardeners achieved an average net margin of 159,352.6 XOF/ha. The average labor remuneration rate is 265,275.9 (± 377,752.8) XOF/man-year. The activity is profitable regarding net margin. The solar panel watering system proved to be the most profitable, followed by manual watering and the petrol pump. Gender, age, level of education, use of family and permanent labor, and entrepreneurial training were the main determinants of the choice of watering systems. This study suggests using of solar panel systems and considering of the factors involved in the choice of drainage systems to propose the most appropriate technologies to market gardeners.