Market Distance and Post-Harvest Labour in Nigeria

Abstract

Post harvest work is part of the operational chain through which crops are stored, processed, transported, sold, or consumed. Its organisation can involve household members, paid workers, and outside-household unpaid workers. Accessibility may be relevant to these arrangements, but household distance, community market presence, travel time, and travel cost are distinct observed conditions. This paper provides a nationally structured, measurement-aware descriptive analysis of reported Post harvest labour organisation among Nigerian farm households. It uses 6,332 eligible household-crop records from 2,761 households in Wave 4 of the Nigeria General Household Survey Panel. The primary exposure is a household geovariable labelled distance in kilometres to the nearest market. It is analysed alongside linked community reports of market conditions. In national models, greater log market distance has a negative point association with paid hired-labour participation. After rurality, crop group, and state indicators are represented, the within-state conditional association is imprecise and changes sign. Recorded worker-hours have no precisely estimated distance gradient in either national or within-state specifications. The linked community indicators have modest correspondence with the household geovariable and are retained as supplementary measures rather than substitutes. The evidence does not identify a causal effect or the mechanisms behind coefficient changes. It establishes that in these household-crop records, conclusions about Post harvest labour organisation depend on the labour outcome, the accessibility measure, and the geographic comparison represented in the model. This provides a transparent descriptive baseline for agricultural and food-systems research connecting rural logistics with labour arrangements.

Keywords: Post harvest operations, agricultural labour, hired labour, market access, rural logistics, Nigeria