**4. Organization of Togo's ornamental firms**

In 2016, the number of horticultural exploitations listed in Togo was 68 geographically distributed as; one farm in Kara, one in Atakpamé, another one in Kpalimé, and 65 in Lomé. From 1997 to 2010, the number of horticultural farms (22 in Lomé in 1997) has increased by 66.66%. Ninety-four percent (52 farms) are located in the "administrative reserves" belonging to the government area and six percent are setting on individual private property (**Figure 2**).

More than 90% of the nurseries are private family farms. Their average size is 291.47 m<sup>2</sup> . (**Figure 3**). The gap (202.76) is very high, showing a great variability of the surface area of horticultural farms.

**Figure 2.** Distribution of nurseries according to places of installation.

In each planting, an ethnobotanical survey has covered therapeutic uses of the identified species. This work was conducted with 279 respondents. The data collected were supplemented with two Traditional Practioners in Lomé. They were subsequently brought into line with those that already existed in the reference literature [36, 40, 41]. The ethno botanical information collected were recorded on sheets of raw data and then transferred to a database. They were processed and analyzed under RGui 2.7.0 statistical software [42] to obtain standardized data concerning the key constituents, therapeutic properties and uses assigned to each reported species, the parts used, and the most commonly mentioned methods of preparation. The status of rare species is indicated by an index of scarcity RI obtained from the equation of Géhu and Géhu [43], where *ni* indicates the number of readings in which the species *i* is

present and *N* is the total number of readings.

**Figure 1.** Togo eco-floristic subdivisions and major cities surveyed.

208 Selected Studies in Biodiversity

**Figure 3.** Distribution of farms according to dimensions (m<sup>2</sup> ). The figures indicate the number of nurseries concerned, S1 = farms having less than 150 m**<sup>2</sup>** ; 150 < S2 < 500 m**<sup>2</sup>** ; S3 = farms having a surface area above 500 m**<sup>2</sup>** ).

**Figure 4.** Age bracket of the farmers (A = age).

Otherwise, 179 people work in the ornamental horticulture sector in Togo and 58% are male. The farm lords are predominantly the youth: 44% are less than 30 year old (**Figure 4**), 29% aged between 30 and 55 years, whereas 27% are more than 55 years.
