ASSESSMENT OF FADAMA III PROGRAMME ON FOOD SECURITY IN BENUE STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Abstract There have been heated debates on the effectiveness of foreign aid like the FADAMA III programme on the well-being of the beneficiaries. Most of the studies established a positive relationship between foreign aid like the FADAMA III project and development using economic indicators like: Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP), and per capita income. None of these studies used development indicators like: food security and poverty among others. This study examines the effects of the FADAMA III programme on food security in Apa Local Government Area of Benue state. The study adopted a survey design and purposive sampling procedure to select seven (7) informants from Apa Local Government Area. Key Informant Interview (KII) was the instrument used to collect information from the key informants and analyzed non-numerically. The study found that training constitutes the major activities of the FADAMA III programme, targeting poverty, unemployment reduction and food security. The study equally found that most of the beneficiaries are still within the moderate and low threshold in their condition of living; and therefore concluded that the FADAMA III programme did not eradicate and reduced to the barest minimum cases of food insecurity and poverty in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State. The study therefore recommends broadening of scope of subsequent FADAMA III assistance programmes in terms of training and coverage to enable it to ameliorate the challenges of food insecurity in Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria.