Laboratoire d'Analyse et de Recherches sur les Dynamiques Economiques et Sociales (LARDES), Département d'Economie et de Sociologie Rurales, Faculté d'Agronomie, Université de Parakou, BP 123; Parakou, Benin
To deal with the soil fertility decrease, farmers in general and farmers producing vegetables in particular adopt various cropping practices of soils fertility management and conservation. This survey aims at identifying the cropping practices which allow the farmers to carry out the maximum of yield and maximize the return to production factors. To reach this objective, investigations have been led by one hundred and twenty (120) vegetable producers in Malanville. These producers have been carried out at random. The data concerning their socioeconomic characteristics and the cropping practices of soils fertility management and conservation have been collected through an enquiry questionnaire. From the data collected, it comes out that the cropping practices of soils fertility management and conservation permit to increase the crops’ outputs. This contribution to the output improvement varies significantly from a practice to another for tomato and gumbo but stay invariant for onion and pimento. All cropping practices of soils fertility management and conservation are economically and financially profitable. Actually, five (05) factors determine producers’ economic efficiency level. These are about the total land size in use for vegetable production, the grouping adherence, the household size, the number of agricultural workers and the producer's experience in vegetable production.