Agroecological Sustainability of Tomato-Producing Vegetable Farms in Northern Benin

Tomato production on vegetable farms is gaining considerable importance in Northern-Benin. However, its sustainability remains a challenge. Based on a random sample of 202 vegetable farms and using the multi-criteria approach and Multiple-Correspondence-Analysis (MCA), the study identifies two categories of tomato producers, those oriented towards organic farming (group 1) and the others using chemical fertilisers and pesticides (group 2). While overall, none of these farms were very sustainable due to their low agroecological score (35.4 %), the component Agricultural practices appears as the one that contributes the most (44.37 %) to the achievement of this total score, followed by Ecological diversity (40.48 %) and Spatial organization (15.01 %). Specifically, the group 1 achieved the highest score (43.01 %) compared to the group 2 (38.35 %). Thus, agroecological sustainability of tomato-producing vegetable farms in northern-Benin remains a challenge and a big concern that requires prompt actions to help producers in adopting and implementing sustainable production practices.