Impact Assessment of Fadama Project on Agricultural Development in Kwara State, Nigeria

Small scale agriculture is the dominant occupation of rural Nigerians. Federal government of Nigeria over the years introduced and implemented several policies and programmes aimed at improving agricultural production. In light of available agricultural potentials the First National Fadama Development project was designed in the early 1990 s to promote simple and low-cost improved irrigation technology under World Bank Finance. The wide spread adoption of the technologies enabled farmers to increase production by more than 300% in some crops. This was followed by Fadama II.

The study was designed to assess impact of fadama II project on agricultural production of the farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria. A total of 120 respondents were purposively selected for the study. Interview schedule was used to elicit information from the respondents and this was subjected to correlation and student t-test analyses. Among the socio-economic characteristics included in the study, only sex (r = 0.285, p = 0.002) and type of agricultural activities (r = 0.224, p = 0.031) have significant relationships with agricultural productivity. There is a significant difference (t = 6.442, p = 0.000) between the productivity of fadama participants and non-fadama participants.

It is therefore recommended that fadama project should continue in Nigeria and that all farmers should be included in the project as this will enhance sustainable food security and improved agricultural production in Nigeria.