Comparative Assessment of Male and Female Cassava Beneficiaries' Participation in the First Phase of the Third National Fadama Additional Financing Project in Anambra State, Nigeria

The study assessed male and female cassava beneficiaries’ participation in the first phase of the Third National Fadama Additional Financing project in Anambra State, Nigeria. For the purpose of the objectives of the study, 120 cassava beneficiaries that participated in the project were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Well-structured questionnaires were the instrument used for data collection, while descriptive statistics, paired sample t-test, multiple regression analysis and factor analysis were used for data analysis. The result of the study indicated that greater proportions (60% and 58.3%) of the sampled male and female beneficiaries fell between the active labour age of 40 and 59 years with mean age value of 43.67 and 43.08 years, respectively. The male respondents were mainly active in the project activities such as need assessment ( =2.65; 1^st), development of business plan ( =2.65; 2^nd) and production group formation ( =2.63; 3^rd) while project activities such as strong linkage to financial institution ( =2.82; 1^st), conflict resolution ( =2.72; 2^nd) and monitoring and evaluation ( =2.67; 3^rd) were actively carried out by the female beneficiaries. The project beneficiaries (male and female) recorded enormous benefits from the project in terms of access to improved farm inputs (95%; 100%), input disbursement (96.7%; 98.3%), increase in yield (93.3%; 96.7%) and access to facilitator (91.7%; 93.3%) respectively. Major agro-input constraining factors as indicated by the male beneficiaries includes: insufficient technical know-how (0.879), lack of improved cassava stems (0.544), inadequate storage facilities (-0.481), poor attitude to work on the part of the Fadama staff (0.792) and poor communication (0.802). Whereas, the female counterparts indicated high cost of inputs (0.774), lack of improved cassava stem (0.813), incident of pest and diseases (-0.661), inadequate access to farmland (0.454) and inadequate electricity supply (0.460) as the major agro-inputs constraining factors militating against their participation in the project. The study further showed that there was a significant difference between the level of male and female participation in the project. Based on the findings of the study, there is need for proactive measures such as timely organization and enlightenment of the farmers and the project staff concerning the project objectives and goals prior to project take off. As this will increase the beneficiaries’ level of participation and project staff commitment towards achieving the project objectives.