Farmers’ Perceived Effectiveness of the Growth Enhancement Support Scheme in Kogi State Nigeria

Abstract

The Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Scheme initiated by the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2012 is one of the many critical components of the federal government's Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA). It was designed for the specific purpose of providing affordable agricultural inputs like fertilizers and hybrid seeds to farmers in order to increase yields per hectare and make them comparable to world standard. The scheme, represents a policy and pragmatic shift within the existing fertilizer market stabilization programme. It puts the resource-constrained farmer at the centre through the provision of a series of incentives to encourage the critical actors in the fertilizer value chain to work together to improve productivity, household food security and income of the farmer. This study determined farmers’ perceptions of the Scheme in Kogi State, Nigeria. A total of 120 scheme participants were purposively selected and interviewed from 12 communities of six local government areas. The results revealed that a majority of the respondents had access to agriculture-related information. The major crops grown in the area included maize, cassava and rice. The respondents had a very high knowledge of the schemes’ activities and the major source of information on the scheme activities was extension agents. A good number of respondents had positive perceptions of the scheme’s operational process and were equally satisfied with some implementation processes of the scheme. However, the major constraints to effective implementation of the scheme included untimely input provision, inability to still pay for the subsidized inputs by the farmers and inability to purchase mobile phones (which were critical for success of the scheme). The study points to the need for early inputs provisions to farmers as farming operations are time bound. Other suggestions are the provision of mobile phones, creation of more redemption centres along with construction of feeder roads in order to facilitate the effective operations of the scheme, as well as early registration of participants. There is a need to focus attention on encouraging more women to participate in the scheme in order to achieve its main objective of increased productivity and household food security.