Assessment of participation and poverty levels of IFAD/NDDC/community- based natural resource programme farmers in Abia state, Nigeria

Abstract

Participation and poverty levels of IFAD/NDDC/Community-Based Natural Resource Management Programme farmers in Abia State were studied and assessed in 2012. Purposive and multistage random sampling techniques were used in the selection of Local Government Areas, participating communities, farmer groups and participating farmers. The sample size was 120 participating farmers. Data were collected with a structured questionnaire and analyzed with descriptive statistics and poverty analysis. The result indicated that IFAD participating farmers were actively involved in crop (M= 4.7), livestock (M= 3.8), fisheries (M= 3.7) and apiary (M= 3.4) technologies of the programme. The results of poverty indices of IFAD farmers showed that the poverty incidence was 33.33% and poverty gap (21.87%). Also, 2.5%, 20.83% and 76.67% of IFAD farmers were extremely poor, moderately poor and non-poor respectively. It is therefore recommended that policies aimed at timely supply of farm inputs since farming is time bound, replication of the programme to other communities and prompt payment of counterpart funds by federal, state and local governments were advocated for poverty reduction in the rural areas.

Key words: Assessment, Participation, Poverty, IFAD, Farmers