Effects of National Fadama III Programme on the Scope and Scale of Beneficiaries’ Farming Activities in South West, Nigeria

This paper examined the effects of National Fadama III programme on the scale and scope of beneficiaries farming activities in the study area. The objective of the study was to ascertain if the activities of the beneficiaries has increased in scope and scale. Two hundred randomly selected beneficiaries were used. Data were collected with the aid of structured interview schedule and analyzed by the use of frequency and percentages and mean statistics. Results revealed that beneficiaries scope of crop production increased by 12% for maize, 19.29% for cassava, 22.22% for yam, 60% for plantain and 231% for agro processing. Scope of livestock production also increased by 233% for goatry, 138% for fisheries, 280% for poultry, 175% for fish processing and a decrease of 27.27 for piggery. The scale of crop production also revealed an increase by 33.73% for cassava production, 35.27% for maize, 5.97% for yam and 16.67% for plantain. For Livestock production, the mean population of poultry rose by 165% for poultry, goatry by 187.5%, fisheries by 99% and piggery by 128%. The income of beneficiaries also rose by 58%. The study recommended that Federal government should sustain the Fadama programme even if the World Bank withdraws from the programme funding. Key words: Fadama III, Beneficiaries, Farm Scale and Scope, Â