Community Driven Development Policy as a Strategy for Rural Development: A Case ofFadama III Crop Production Co-Operative Societies in Anambra, Enugu and Imo States of Nigeria

Abstract

This work evaluates community-driven development policy as a strategy for rural development looking at crop farmers’co-operative societies of the Fadama III Project in Anambra, Enugu and Imo States of Nigeria. The study estimatedannual incomes and productive resources used by the farmers before and after joining the project and identifiedconstraints to the realization of project objectives. Descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, means andpercentages, were used to analyze data on socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, their incomes andconstraints to effective realization of the project objectives while multiple regression model using the ordinary leastsquares (OLS) approach was used to determine the influence of socio-economic characteristics of the farmers on theirincome before and after joining the project. Hypotheses were tested using t-statistic in Two-Sample T-test. Thesignificant difference between productive resources utilized by the farmers before and after joining the project impliesgoodness of the policy which constitutes an injection of capital into the rural economy. The crop farmers’ annualincomes before and after joining the project were significantly determined by distance to the market, farm size,extension visits and value of productive resources. Irregular fund disbursement topped the list of nine constraints toeffective realization of project objectives arranged in descending order of seriousness. Early and prompt release ofproductive resources and cash counterpart contributions to the farmers, provision of more extension agents, servicesand logistics for the farmers and reduction of users’ cash contribution will ensure improved productivity, income andproject sustainability.