ABSTRACT

One of the primary objectives of government intervention policies of every nation is to develop a mechanism which aims at improving the wellbeing of its citizenry, especially the poor. However, with all these mechanisms put in place, poverty remains a global challenge, which prompted the attention of the global community under the umbrella of the United Nations General Assembly, to develop a time – bound framework that stimulates the need to tackling the problem of poverty among other things, which led to establishment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Based on the above scenario, this study assessed the Impact of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Poverty: case Study of Selected crop farmers in Lafia Local Government, Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Data were obtained from 346 respondents which include 227 and 119 MDGs Projects beneficiary and non – beneficiary farmers respectively. The data were collected based on a subsample of respondents among the Rice farmers, Maize farmers and Yam farmers’ beneficiaries and non beneficiaries respectively. Descriptive statistical tools were used to determine the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers, net farm income difference and double difference estimator were employed to find out the level of profitability of the beneficiaries. In addition, Foster Greer Thorbecke (FGT) poverty indices were also used to assess the poverty status of the respondents while logit regression was employed to measure the determinants of poverty among the beneficiaries. Findings of the study show that 56.1% of the beneficiaries were males, 73.0% were youth, 51.1% were married and 97.5% have attended formal education at various levels. The MDGs introduced different innovations to improve on the various crop productions like land acquisition, access to improve variety, drought resistant specie etc. The result also revealed higher rate of profitability among the MDGs beneficiaries than non beneficiaries after the MDGs intervention where the rate of profit obtained by the beneficiaries increased by 129.3% for the rice farmers as against the 69.0% obtained by the non beneficiaries, 182.6% for the maize farmers as against the 63.4% obtained by the non beneficiaries as well as 180.4% for the yam farmers as against the 68.1% obtained by the non beneficiaries. The result also indicated a positive mean double profit difference of about N 96,266.6 for the rice farmers, N121, 367.3 for the maize farmers and N 152,051.4 for the yam farmers. Results from the FGT indices indicated higher poverty incidence before the MDGs intervention than during the intervention and also higher incidences among the control group than the experimental group after the intervention. Poverty incidence for the core poor and moderate poor among the beneficiaries was 40.5% and 35.2% before t