PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF VALUE CHAIN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IN ENSURING FOOD SECURITY IN CASSAVA PRODUCTION IN ANAMBRA STATE AND STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to determine the perceived effectiveness of Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) in ensuring food security and strategies for improvement as perceived by farmers and VCDP Unit staff. Two research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study. The study employed descriptive survey research design. The target population of this study consist of all VCDP unit staff and cassava farmers in all participating local government areas. The population of the study consisted of 366 (60 VCDP staff and 306 cassava farmers). The data for the study was obtained using questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into two parts, A and B. Part A focused on the personal data of the respondents while Part B focused on items addressing the research questions. Part B was divided into two sections. Each of the items has 4-point response categories as follows: Very Effective (VE), Effective (E), Slightly Effective (SE) and Ineffective. The instrument was validated by a cassava farmer, VCDP unit staff and three experts from the Departments of Educational Foundations, Science Education and Adult and Continuing Education in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The Cronbach alpha approach of estimating reliability was used to ascertain the reliability coefficient of the instrument. A correlation index of 0.86 was obtained for ensuring food security and 0.88 for strategies for improvement of VCDP. The analyses showed that the instrument has a reliability of 0.86 which indicated high reliability. Mean and t-test statistics were adopted for answering the research questions and testing the hypothesis respectively. Data analysis showed that the VCDP was effective in ensuring food security in cassava production. It was also revealed that the VCDP staff and cassava farmers differed significantly in their mean ratings on the effectiveness of VCDP in ensuring food security in cassava production. This means that there is a discrepancy between the VCDP Unit staff and cassava farmers on the perceived effectiveness of the programme. Accordingly, it was recommended that the Anambra State Government and VCDP funding agency (IFAD) should scale up their efforts by extending their functions to other Local Government Areas and that the Anambra State VCDP should invest more in infrastructure such as transportation, storage facilities, and processing centers to enhance the cassava value chain's efficiency, more productivity and accessibility.