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APPRAISAL OF LAND DEPLETION THROUGH BUSH BURNING

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1    BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Vegetable are highly perishable except under intensive care during harvest, handling and transportation. There can also be losses in quality as measured both by the price obtained and the nutritional values as well as in quantity. Farmers are forced to sell their products at give away prices due to absence of adequate storage income goes to the waste bins.

Estimate of production losses in developing countries are usually very hard to come by. Post harvest losses in vegetable in Africa countries have been estimated to about 50% of the total production food and agricultural organization implies that half of the total production are lost during storage handling and transportation of their produce. Therefore minimizing these losses to a large extent between harvest and consumption of already produced food is more sustainable than increasing production (Kader and Roll, 2004).

Post harvest losses are caused by mechanical injuries, inadequate storage, unsuitable handling, faculty system of transport and delayed transportation in retail market. Green vegetable refer to all leafy vegetable predominantly green in colour which can be eaten boiled or in soups. They have achieved tremendous popularity over the last century among local trader. Besides being tasty the green vegetables as they are good source of vitamin A and C. they are low calories and fasts, high in protein per calories, dietary, fibre, iron and calcium. They have a very short life span. They have high economic value. 

Burning with reference to land cultivation is a method of land preparation in Edo State. In general and in Ekiadolor in Ovia North East Local Government Area of Edo State in particular bush burning generally is the method of  removing the natural vegetable from the surface of the soil by setting fire on debris. Bush burning causes serious damage to trees and crops, its effect of public concern which should not be for farmer alone and should be handled with seriousness, practice of burning of fire could also lead to accidental burning of his land and other properties at