ABSTRACT
The Kogi State Commercial Agriculture Development Programme (KSCADP) was established as part of the government transformation programme in the agricultural sector. The KSCADP was expected to facilitate farmers‟ stakeholders with access to credit facilities so as to boost food/cash crops production in the state. Thus, the impact of farmers in the KSCADP is still below expectations as the agricultural sector of the State economy has continued to perform below expectations despite huge money invested in the programme.
The study therefore, takes an empirical investigation into farmers‟ contributions in decision making and training/awareness programme and how it affects the success of KSCADP. The major objectives of the study is to determine how farmers‟ contributions in decision-making affect the performance of the programme; others were todetermine how farmers‟ stakeholders‟ participation in training and awareness programmes improved the performance of the KSCADP.
Two hypotheses guided the study. The study based on the literature review established, adopts the „Sherry Arnstein‟sClassic ladder of citizen participation‟ model. The study employed both primary and secondary sources of data collection. Stratified Random sampling technique and Systematic random sampling technique were adopted. Structured questionnaires and interview schedule were used in collecting data from 272 and5 respondents respectively. The Krejcie and Morgan Small-sample Techniques for a Known Population Size,was used to draw the sample size. Descriptive statistics, the Pearson Moment correlation coefficient (r) and Regression were used for the analysis.The results of the analysis revealed that there is a relationship between farmers‟ contributions in decision-making; their participation in training/awareness programmes and the KSCADP.
But despite the positive level of relationship amongst these variables the performance of the KSCADP is still below expectation. The results established that, farmers only contributed 45% input in decision making and had only 47% degree of training/awareness programmes, due to management negligence the programme objectives have not been realised. The study recommends amongst others that the management of the commercial agricultural development programme should involve the programme beneficiaries (farmers) in the design, planning and execution of projects, in other words their contributions as stakeholders should be integrated in the outcome of policy rolled out by the government. Skilled manpower should be employed and be encouraged to visit farmers on regular basis to teach them modern agricultural technology. State governments should take more responsibility by making training and awareness programme available to beneficiaries of the programme.
