Effect of Climate Change Adaptation and Agribusiness Support Programme (CASP) on poverty alleviation among Maize farming household in Katsina State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effects of climate change adaptation and agribusiness support programs on poverty alleviation among maize farming households in Katsina state. A three-stage sampling technique was used to collect data from 436 smallholder maize farming households with the use of a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indexes, and independent t-test analysis were used to achieve the objectives of the study. Results of descriptive statistics shown that the average age of participating households is 48.30 years while for non-participating is 50.52 years old. The average household size of participating households is 9.22 persons while that of non-participating households is 9 persons. And also indicates that the majority (89.75%) of participating household heads and 94.85% of the non-participating households were male with only 10.25% and 3.16% respectively are female. FGT result revealed that the Poverty incidents index was 44% for participating households and 63% for non-participating households; the poverty gap index (α = 1) is 36.9% for participating households and 46.8% for non-participating households and overall FGT analysis showed decreases in the incidence, depth, and severity of poverty among the CASP participating households due to income from maize production. Results from the t-test analysis revealed significant differences in revenue realized from the sales of Maize by the participating maize farming households is NGN 808,155 while those of non-participating households are NGN 693,184.Findings highlight that participation in CASP potentially contributes despite the climate change context to improving revenue and reducing poverty among participating households and recommended the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation strategies into production systems.