CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Nigeria has substantial economic
potential in its‟ agricultural sector. However, despite the importance of
agriculture in terms of employment creation, its potential for contributing to
economic growth is far from being fully exploited (USAID, 2005). The
agricultural sector has been the mainstay of Nigeria‟s economy employing 70% of
the active labour force and contributes significantly to the country‟s Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) and foreign earnings. In 1960, 1970, and 1980, it
contributed 55.2%, 40.7% and 18% to GDP respectively, while its contribution to
GDP in 1996, 1997, and 1999 stood at 39.0%, 39.4% and 40.4% respectively (NPC
and UNDP, 1999). In 2010 agricultural contribution to GDP stood at 30.0%, while
currently as at first quarter of 2012, it is contributing 34.4% to the GDP
(NBS, 2012). However, there have been recorded decline in agricultural
contribution to the national economic growth for over three decades now since
emergence of the oil sector. This decline could be associated with the gross
neglect of the agricultural sector and over dependence on the oil sector (Ugwu and
Kanu, 2012).
The agricultural sector had been
constrained with factors such as poor rural infrastructure, poor fertilizer
distributions and high cost of farm inputs that could have enhance its
production capacity and contribution to the national economy. The oil-boom era
had lead to importation of food items in massive scale at the expense of
locally produced ones because the rural farmers do not have the technological
resources to compete in international market. This discourages the farmers from
producing much because they no longer realized the needed profit from their
effort (Ogunwole, 2004). The goal of increasing food production and reducing
food import has elicited many programmes and policies at the various levels of
government (Kudi et al., 2008). In order to revamp the agricultural
sector, the Federal Government of Nigeria had embarked on and implemented
several agricultural policies and programmes some of which are defunct or
abandoned, and some restructured, while others are still in place. Presidential
initiatives on cassava production and a number of new programme
interventionsare currently implemented to increase area of cassava production,
processing and marketing across the country.
Cassava is one of the most widely
cultivated crops in the country. It is generally cultivated on small-holdings
in association with crops such as maize, groundnut, cowpea, plantation (such as
coffee, coconut and oil palm), vegetables and cocoyam depending on the
agro-ecological zone and relies on residual soil nutrients when intercropped
with maize which has been fertilized or as following crop in rotation with
legumes (IITA, 2004; Chukwuji, 2008). Cassava is grown mainly on impoverished
soils with no soil amendments such as fertilizers. Continuous cropping of
cassava particularly the high yielding varieties without adequate maintenance
of soil fertility could lead to soil and environmental degradation (IITA,
2004). Nigeria is the largest producer of cassava in the World. Its production
is currently put at about thirty-four (34) million metric tonnes a year (FAO,
2002).
Nigeria‟s cassava production was
targeted at forty (40) million tonnes in 2005 and sixty (60) million tonnes by
2020 (IITA, 2002). The presidential Initiative on Cassava Production and Export
has increased the awareness amongst Nigerians of the industrial crop, popularly
referred to as the „new black gold‟. According to Nweke et al. (2002)cassava
performs five main roles namely: famine reserve crop, rural food staple, cash
crop, industrial raw material and earning of foreign exchange. Uses of cassava products
are enormous. Virtually, the whole plant from the leaves, stem and the roots
has one use or the other. Daneji (2011) posited that, cassava is one of the
most staple food crops in many households in Nigeria. The fresh peeled cassava
roots are eaten raw, boiled or roasted. They can also be boiled and pounded to
obtain "pounded fufu". This is most popular in the Eastern part of
Nigeria. The processed cassava, either in the form of flour, wet pulp or “garri”
is cooked or eaten in three main food forms: "fufu", "eba"
and "chickwangue" (Adebile, 2012). Cassava leaves are rich in
protein, calcium, iron and vitamins, comparing favourably with other green
vegetables generally regarded as good protein sources. Cassava can be processed
into several other products like chips, flour, pellets, adhesives, alcohol,
starch, etc which are raw materials in livestock feed, alcohol/ethanol,
textiles, confectionery, wood, food and soft drink industries (Iheke, 2008).
In a similar vein, Adebayo (2009)
stated that processing the bulky, perishable crop is an obstacle to its full
commercialization in sub-Saharan Africa. To motivate farmers, especially women
who are the main processors of food in the village, to grow and process their
cassava, we need to provide them with labour-saving implements such as graters,
peelers, and crushers. There is also need to link them to markets. Cassava
roots are bulky and with about 70.0% moisture content, are very perishable. It
is therefore, expensive to transport cassava especially along poor access roads.
Therefore, a well-developed market access infrastructure is crucial for cassava
marketing (Adeniji et al., 2006). However, focus should not be on the
exportation of cassava but to develop the enormous local and regional markets
for cassava that exist in the country, West African sub-region and Africa as a
whole rather than start exporting the industrial raw material to Europe.
According to Food and Agriculture Organization Statistics (2008) Nigeria‟s
cassava export in 2005, was 2,100 tonnes compared to the leading exporter,
Thailand, with 4,384,350 tonnes. The performance evaluation of marketing
component of cassava initiative include, establishment of cassava processing
centers in each Local Government Area(LGA) of the cassava producing States
(Yisa, 2009). In this regard, rural people are encouraged to add value to
cassava products by processing it for industrial application and human
consumption. Processing of cassava into various shelf-stable and semi-stable
products is a widespread activity in Nigeria carried out by traditional cassava
processors and small-scale commercial processing units (Henk et al.,
2007).
1.2 Problem Statement
Nigeria has a huge agricultural
resource endowment and yet the population is facing hunger and poverty. The
agricultural sector is facing the problem of sustaining food production to meet
up the need of increasing population in the country (Okolo, 2004; Ironkwe,
2005). Various governments in Nigeria have consistently declared policies
aiming at self-sufficiency in food. The means toward achieving this objective
has always been an expansion in cultivated area and improvement on the yield.
Cassava is one of the major staple crops grown in Kogi State particularly in
the study area. Government intervention programmes and policies, and the
efforts of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in support of production,
processing and marketing of cassava date back to the 1970s (Adeniji et al.,
2006).
Some of the Government
agricultural intervention programmes and policies aimed at increasing
agricultural production especially cassava production include the Farm
Settlement Scheme, National Accelerated Food Production Programme (NAFPP),
Agricultural Development Projects (ADPs), River Basin Development Authorities
(RBDAs), National Seed Service (NSS), National Centre for Agricultural 5
Mechanization (NCAM),
Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) and Agricultural
Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF). Others were the Nigerian Agricultural
Cooperative and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB), Agricultural Banks, Operation
Feed the Nation (OFN), Green Revolution (GR), Directorate of Foods, Roads and
Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI), Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Company (NAIC),
National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) and Specialized
Universities for Agriculture.
Agricultural Development Projects
(ADPs) is an integrated approach which came into being as a result of the
failure of special crop programmes to achieve rural development and food
security objectives of government in Nigeria. As intervention strategies, these
programmes have been designed to increase productivity in cassava sub-sector,
as well as enhancing farmers‟ income from agriculture (Yisa, 2009). The NGOs
efforts include Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Project (SARDP),
Rural Poverty Eradication Project (RPEP), Cassava Enterprise Development
Project (CEDP) and others. All these programmes and policies due to one reason
or the other have failed to meet the objective of self-sufficiency in food
production.
A number of new initiatives are
also currently being implemented to increase area of cultivation, yields,
processing and marketing of cassava products in the country. These include the
presidential initiatives on cassava production, the National Special Programme
for Food Security (NSPFS), Root and Tuber Expansion Programme (RTEP) and Rural
Banking Scheme (Ugwu and Kanu, 2012). The Root and Tuber Expansion Programme
(RTEP) was formulated between 1995 and 1997 to consolidate the gains made under
the Cassava Multiplication Project (CMP) of ADP in order to enhance national
food self-sufficiency and improve rural household food security and income of
poor farmers within the southern and middle belt States of the country.
At the expiration of the Root and
Tuber Expansion Programme time-frame in 2007, the Kogi State Agricultural
Development Projects (KADP) formulated an intervention programme in Okehi LGA
termed Survival Farming Intervention Programme (SFIP) with the aim of enhancing
cassava production, adding value to cassava products through processing and
creating markets for the processed products especially “garri” which are
packaged into various categories for sales, though, other finish products of
cassava such as starch, flour, pellet and chips are also still under
consideration. The programme was in later years expanded to include other LGAs.
The SFIP was formulated in
October, 2007 with the major objective centered on improving cassava production
through the provision of planting materials and other inputs, processing and
packaging, and marketing along the value-chain approach to improve the
production capacity of the cassava stakeholders and their level of living. The
main thrust of the survival farming intervention programme is on the
development of cassava processing industry that converts fresh cassava root
tubers into primary cassava-based commodities that are tradable in domestic and
international markets. The long-term objective is to commercialize cassava
production in order to improve the income, food security and living conditions
of small-holder households in Kogi State. So far, huge amount of money and
human resources have been expended on the programme.
However, since the inception of
the programme, no studies have been conducted to assess its impact on the
target population. This constitutes a gap in knowledge that need to be filled
making this study very imperative. Moreover, according to Delta State Ministry
of Agriculture (2004) research findings show that one of the reasons for
failure of past government sponsored agricultural development programmes was
lack of data base for policy formulation, programme implementation, monitoring
and impact evaluation. The study further states that without adequate
evaluation, one cannot be sure whether the objectives of a programme have been
achieved or not. It was against the backdrop of the aforementioned reasons that
this study was conceived to assess the impact of the Kogi Agricultural
Development Project Survival Farming Intervention Programme in Adavi, Okehi and
Okene Local Government Areas of Kogi State. The study, therefore, provides
answer to the following research questions:
i. What are the socio-economic
characteristics of the programme participants and non-participants in the study
area?
ii. What is the level of
awareness of survival farming intervention programme components?
iii. What are the factors
influencing participation of respondents in survival farming intervention
programme on cassava production in the study area?
iv. What is the impact of
survival farming intervention programme on cassava production of the
participants and non-participants in the study area?
v. What is the impact of survival
farming intervention programme on income and level of living of the
participants and non-participants in the study area?
vi. What are the constraints to
effective implementation of survival farming intervention programme in the
study area?
Department: Agricultural Economics
Format: Microsoft Word
Format: Microsoft Word
Chapters: 1 - 5, Preliminary Pages, Abstract, References, Questionnaire
Delivery: Email
Delivery: Email
No. of Pages: 109
Price: 3000 NGN
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