Impact Of Regional Agricultural Projects On Small Farm Sector Productivity And Socioeconomic Growth In East Africa

ABSTRACT

Regional projects hereby refer to projects implemented in more than one country. The countries of focus are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. The purpose of the study was to build the thesis that regional projects generated more impacts and significantly contributed to: increased agricultural production and productivity; enhanced stakeholders’ access to financial services; increased incomes; profitable land uses; and up-scaling of technologies, innovations, and management practices (TIMPs).

Primary data were collected through targeted and focused interviews. Household surveys comprised respondents’ socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the farmers. Secondary data source included documents from the various ministries of agriculture and livestock development, Central Bureau of Statistics, as well as evaluation reports and other publications by FAO, IFPRI, World Bank and USAID. Through multi-stage sampling technique, a total of 1,160 smallholder farmers were interviewed. Farmers engaged in regional projects were regarded as beneficiaries, and vice versa. Quantitative data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software, while Chi-square tests were done to identify related parameters. Regression models were also fitted to evaluate the impacts of these regional projects.

Results show that regional projects generated more regional public goods for end-users than the projects implemented at individual country levels. Compared to non-beneficiaries, the beneficiaries recorded:(i) up to 26.5% increase in revenues, and an average annual income of US$ 259; (ii) a reduction in farm expenditure by 11.6 percentage points; (iii) an increase of 23% and 32% respectively on milk production and number of improved cattle breeds; (iv) over 100% increase in productivity and spillovers of selected commodities such as cassava, millet, striga-resistant sorghum, climbing and bush beans, and low-cost tissue culture banana varieties; (v) over 82% satisfaction with membership-related benefits; (vi) significant financial gains for the unemployed youths who receive annual wages of up to US$ 131; (vii) enhanced policy formulation and harmonization processes, including heightened policy analysis; (viii) joint tackling of regional problems, such as the maize lethal necrotic disease (MLND) in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda; and (ix) significantly high level of farmers’ confidence in the management of availed TIMPs – a score of 2.1 on