Evaluation of Community Social Development Projects (CSDP) on cassava farmers in Edo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Lack of amenities in rural communities has continued to impede on agricultural productivity, and this has greatly reduced profitability  and efficiency of the rural farmers. The study evaluated impact of Community and Social Development Projects (CSDP) interventions in  rural communities on Cassava farmers in Edo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: determine economic performance of Cassava  farmers who benefited from the CSDP in Edo State; assess the profitability of CDSP Cassava farmers’ beneficiaries; and ascertain  the productivity of land and labour use efficiency by CSDP Cassava farmers. In all, 479 respondents that consist of 245 CSDP beneficiaries and 234 non-beneficiary Cassava farmers were sampled and used for the study. Result of the Gross Margin Analysis showed  an average cassava output ( x=9007.61 ton/hectare) and Net Farm Income (x=₦561,284.93) for CDSP beneficiaries which is higher  than nonbeneficiaries. For Labour, productivity per hectare for beneficiaries, the mean was x=284.52 mandays, and x =251.22 man  days for non-beneficiaries significant at (p<0.05). Also, regression analysis showed that farm size (b =1.436ha), labour man-days (b =  0.143) and cassava cuttings (b = 0.301) were significant (p<0.05), positively affected CSDP beneficiary cassava farmers’ output with a  higher (96.5%) technical efficiency. Result indicated too that healthcare centres and boreholes projects provided by CSDP promoted  technical efficiency of farmers. It is therefore recommended that provision of infrastructures such as healthcare centres and portable  water should be extended to farming communities.