Estimating the Treatment Effect of Land Degradation on Smallholder Arable Crop Farmers’ Food Security and Productivity in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study was conducted to estimate the treatment effect of land degradation on smallholder arable crop farmers’ food security and productivity in Kwara State, Nigeria. A multi stage random farming household survey resulted in four (4) Local Government Areas (LGAs), eight (8) villages, and 240 farmers were filtered to 92 and 148 land graded and non-degraded farmers, respectively. The t-statistics, propensity score matching (PSM) and local average treatment effect (LATE) models were used as analytical tools for the study. The result showed that the t-test value of 2.3 was statistically significant at P≤0.05 signifying difference between the income of farmers whose land was degraded and non-degraded. The results of the impact of land degradation on food security and productivity of the smallholder farmers revealed that the average food security index and productivity was 0.297 and 1.17 units, respectively. The average impact estimation disclosed that degraded land had a significant and negative impact on food security status and productivity of arable crop farmers. The treatment effect on the treated (ATT) on the average had a negative impact and reduced food security index and productivity of farmers whose land was degraded by -0.419 (60.55 %) and 0.120 (9.3 %). The average effect of the treatment (ATE) for arable crop farmers also had negative difference of -0.200 and -0.090 units, respectively. The study recommended that farmers should take advantage of their cooperative membership and collaborate with relevant agencies such as extension personnel, ministry of environment and others relevant stakeholders for training and workshop on how to prevent and combat land degradation problems.