Impact of Millennium Village Project (MVP) Intervention in Agricultural Infrastructure in Ikara Local Government, Nigeria

Abstract

The role of infrastructural facilities in agricultural development and poverty reduction cannot be over-emphasized whether in urban or rural environments. When infrastructure works, productivity and labour increases. When it does not work, citizens suffer, particularly the poor. The study examined empirically the impact of Milleniun Village Project (MVP) intervention in agricultural infrastructure in Ikara Local Government Area, Kaduna State, Nigeria. The study specifically carried out a comparative survey of eight infrastructures: Health centers, schools, markets centers, extension centers, portable water, credit facilities, agro services, and their influence on the agricultural productivity. It determined the extent of rural infrastructural development, effects of components of rural infrastructure on farm output and the determinants of agricultural productivity. A multi stage sampling procedure was adopted for the study through purposive selection of two out of the seven districts in Ikara local government namely Saulawa, and Furana based on the MVP intervention district and the Non-intervention district. The next stage was random selection of communities from the selected districts. Lastly, was another purposive selection of 10 farming households each from the chosen communities. Data were gathered from eighty farm households and three discussant groups selected across the study area. The study data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics, infrastructures index analysis, Production Function Analysis and Gross Margin Analysis. Findings indicated that the average income of the farmers was N219556.00 and N101632.00 for MVPs and Non-MVPs respectively. There was a significant difference in the estimated mean income from the sale of farm products for both MVPs and Non-MVPs.  The implication of these findings is that, the project made an appreciable impact on annual income of the MVP farmers. The respective Average gross margin was N193564.0 and N816400 for the most developed (MVP farmers), and under-developed (Non-MVP farmers) respectively. More so, findings showed a higher return on output in the developed districts, which could be attributed to the presence of more infrastructural facilities in the developed districts compared to the less developed one. The difference in the gross margin (economic productivity) of the farmers in the districts was established with the use of paired t-test as revealed. The test shows a significant difference between the gross margins of farmers that make up the MVP and non-MVP farmers, which could be attributed to the poor state of infrastructure variation amongst the districts. The empirical estimation of the Probit analysis result revealed a log likelihood of -96.160222, pseudo R2 of 0.0875 and LR statistic of 18.44, all significant at 5 percent probability level; this shows that the model has a good fit. Results of technical efficiency of crop farmers showed that only education is significant among the efficient variables, all (age, sex, household size and marital status) are directly related to farmers’ technical efficiency. The findings also indicated a significant increase in agricultural productivity as a result of the MVP intervention. This increase in agricultural productivity could be attributed to higher input usage (mainly improved seeds and fertilizer). Nevertheless, the overall household income effect was insignificant. These results have great implications for the achievement of the objective of poverty reduction as envisaged by the MVP and the “big push” proponents.

Keywords: Rural infrastructure, Agricultural productivity, Millennium Village Project and Farm output