Influence of Community-Based Agriculture and Rural Development Projects on Poverty Reduction in Nigeria: The Moderating Role of Community Participation

Rural Nigeria faces persistent poverty, where agriculture remains the primary livelihood for the largely rural population. However, although Community-Based Agriculture and Rural Development Projects (CBARDP) have been widely implemented, the extent to which community participation strengthens their poverty-reduction outcomes remains insufficiently examined, particularly using a comprehensive Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) approach. This paper discusses how Community-Based Agriculture and Rural Development Projects (CBARDP) reduce poverty in Nigeria with the community participation as a moderator. Primary data were collected from 385 rural household heads using a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Respondents were selected through multistage stratified random sampling across the North-West, North-East, and South-South geopolitical zones of Nigeria, yielding a 96.25% response rate. The findings revealed that Community-Based Agriculture Projects (CBAP) exerted a significant positive direct effect on poverty reduction (β = .189, p < .001), whereas Rural Development Projects (RDP) did not. Community participation both directly reduced poverty (β = .237) and significantly strengthened the effects of CBAP (β = .304) and RDP (β = .215) on poverty reduction. The moderation model elucidated 47% of the variance in poverty alleviation. These results show that meaningful community involvement is not just an extra step, but a necessary step to turn investments in agriculture and rural development into long-term poverty reduction in Nigeria. While the cross-sectional design limits causal inference, the model explains substantial variation in poverty reduction and provides a robust basis for future longitudinal investigations.