Rapid labour data collection for secondary crops: Cocoyam and soybean farming systems in Nigeria

The challenge to effective farming systems research is to find methods of system appraisal that maximize the use of existing information and are timely while maintaining a certain measure of accuracy and validity—in other words to achieve rapid rural appraisal. The comparative method for the collection of labour utilization for secondary crops is based on a combination of literature study and field survey. Farmers compare foodcrops of which labour utilization data are known with crops of which the labour requirements are unknown. From the rankings, the labour use of the unknown crops can be derived. The comparative method was applied for cocoyam and soybean farming systems in Nigeria. In both cases absolute labour data derived correspond with relative labour data provided by the farmers themselves. The method, therefore, seems to be a quick, but nevertheless reliable, method by which generally applicable labour utilization data can be obtained.