Farmers’ decision to participate in government agricultural programmes in a volatile political environment: a case study of farmers in the South-South region of Nigeria

Most government agricultural programmes in developing countries are designed following the political ideology of the ruling class and farmers have mixed responses regarding participation. The top bottom approach adopted in designing these programmes further created dissatisfaction among farmers. Achieving the objectives of these programmes will depend on the level of farmers’ participation. Premised on this, the study determined factors that influence farmers’ participation in government agricultural programmes in the Southern region of Nigeria. Data were collected from 390 farmers in the study area. Combinations of sampling methods were used to collect data. The Logit model estimates revealed that, household size, dependent ratio, farming experience, years in social organization, land ownership, awareness index, membership in political party, non-farm income, visit by extension agent, male composition in farming population and level of formal education were positive determinants of farmers’ participation in government agricultural programmes in the study area. On the contrary, farm income and bureaucracy bottleneck involved in these programmes were negative determinants. Perceived constraints to farmers’ participation were; bureaucracy involve; insufficient land for implementation, high transport cost and low awareness. In order to increase farmers’ participation in agricultural based programme in the region, it is recommended that, government should reclaim marginal land and create a policy that will increase land ownership by resource poor farmers in the region. Farmers should be encouraged to form social groups. Massive awareness campaign should be mounted to sensitize farmers on government agricultural programmes in the region. Also, such programmes should be politically neutral and design following bottom-up approach.