Empirical analysis of the effect of incentives on sustainability of intervention project in smallholder chicken egg production in Southwest Nigeria

Justification of sustained investment on technology development and dissemination is predicated on proven impact on agricultural production systems. Providing empirical evidence of ex-post impact of intervention on productivity and income of farmers has been a major challenge in execution of special intervention project in Nigeria. This study examined the effect of the intervention on increased productivity, income and growth of smallholder chicken egg farmers in Southwest Nigeria. Using data generated from the records of farmer participants of an intervention project sponsored by the Korea-Africa Food and Agriculture Cooperation Initiative (KAFACI), this study showed increase in managerial capabilities of farmers over the three years of the project through reduction in mortality rate from baseline of 37.8% to 12.6%, increase in egg production per bird from 122 to 348 eggs and income per farm of ₦418,288.54, ₦819,912.00 and ₦1,000,792.30 for 2017, 2018 and 2019 production cycles respectively. The farmers also responded positively to the intervention with increase in stock size (461.3%) pointing to growth potential attributable to the intervention. The intervention project through capacity building, technical backstopping and monitoring improved the management capabilities of the farmers translating to improved productivity, enhanced income generation and increased stock size.