POVERTY STATUS OF WOMEN FADAMA III BENEFICIARIES AND NON-BENEFICIARIES IN BAUCHI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed poverty status of women fadama III beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Multi stage sampling technique was used to select 270 beneficiaries and 270 non-beneficiaries of fadama III project. Data were collected with a pre-tested questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result shows that the mean age for beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries was 42 years and the year of experience for beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries was 10 years and 11 years, respectively. The average income for groundnut processing was ₦103,800.00 for beneficiaries and ₦53,125.00 for non-beneficiaries. The result further showed that all the 270 respondents (100%) fell under non-poor class using income approach; whereas among the non-beneficiaries all the three (3) categories had some proportion of them that fell into the various categories. The highest proportion of the respondents (52.9%) were in poor class, 40.2% were core poor while only 6.9% fell under the non-poor category. The results further revealed that 100% of the fadama III beneficiaries were within the non-poor; under the expenditure approach, about 76% of the beneficiaries were non-poor; 14.4% were poor and 9.6% were core poor. Also, about 19% of non-beneficiaries fell under the non-poor class; 30.4% under the poor category while 50.8% fell under the core poor. The study concluded that fadama III project had reduced poverty in the study area. It was recommended that increased funding of agriculture through groups would truly empower farmers to venture into new areas of investments including product processing and packaging to add value.