| The International Fund for Agricultural Development Community Based Agriculture and Rural Development Project (IFAD-CBARDP) was an integrated agriculture and rural development programme. This study assessed the impact of IFAD-CBARDP on the livelihood of smallholder crop farmers in Katsina State. Multistage sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The first stage involved a purposive sampling of one village that had the highest number of participating farmers out of the three villages in each Local Government Area. The second stage involved the use of systematic random sampling technique to select 12% from 2894 participating farmers from the twelve participating villages, which gave a sample of 349 participating farmers. Also, 349 non-participating farmers were selected using systematic random sampling from the neighbouring communities to serve as control group, this gave 698 respondents. In addition, 3 IFAD-CBARDP officials from each LGA were randomly selected as respondents. Data were analysed using descriptive statistical analysis, logistic regression analysis, chow and z-test statistics. Findings revealed that the average ages of the participating and non-participating farmers were 46 and 48 years respectively. Majority (91%) and (99%) of the participating and non-participating farmers respectively were males. On the level of involvement of the participating farmers in the project, findings revealed that very few participating farmers (9%, 15% and 19%) collaborated in development of local plans, conducting need assessment and identification of priority public infrastructure respectively. The result also revealed that level of education (-0.309), sex (-0.283) and household size (-0.041) had negative co-efficients and were significant at 1% level, while farm size (0.801), membership of cooperative (0.547) and extension contact (0.583) had positive co-efficients and were significant at 1% level of probability. Findings revealed that 87.2%, 83% and 82.73% of the respondents respectively adopted the use of recommended fertilizer, method and dosage of fertilizer application and the use of seed dressing chemicals. Findings also revealed that the project had a positive impact on the yield of participating farmers with a yield differential of 84.44% over that of the non-participating farmers. Finding further showed that the project had a positive impact on the income of the participating farmers with a mean difference of N 27,556.22 over that of the non-participating farmers. Findings also showed that 16.9%, 15.2% and 14.6% of the respondents respectively identified low counterpart funding, untimely disbursement of funds and inadequate mobility of extension staff as the major constraints to the effective implementation of the programme. The study also found that 16.1%, 16.0% and 15.7% of the respondents respectively identified inadequate capital, inadequate agricultural credit and inadequate storage facilities as the major constraints to the effective participation in the programme by the participating farmers. It was concluded that the adoption of IFAD-CBARDP recommended farming practices had increased the yield, income and level of living of the participating farmers. Based on the success of this project in the study area, it was recommended that it should be scale out, to the neighbouring villages in the study area and beyond by the stakeholder |
Thank you for choosing us!
