Contribution of Agriculture Projects and Project Beneficiary Welfare: Case of Sustainable Agriculture Intensification and Food Security Project in Gwiza, Rwanda

Abstract

The welfare of farmers is influenced by many factors such as the performance of agriculture projects which help give good productivity to the farmers. Some agriculture projects did not show an effect on the farmers improving their welfare. This research mainly aimed to investigate the agriculture project's contribution to the project beneficiary welfare, the case of Sustainable agriculture intensification, and food security projects for the Gwiza cooperative. This research was divided into three objectives: Agri-inputs, capacity building, and market access. A descriptive research design was utilized to conduct the study. The target population was 345 respondents comprising Gwiza farmers and project managers of Sustainable agriculture intensification and food security projects. A sample of 136 was selected from the population of 345 using simple random probability sampling to pick the participants from Gwiza Cooperative farmers. Self-Administered questionnaires were utilized to collect the primary data. SPSS version 25 was utilized for analyzing the data. Quantitatively, the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics; multiple chi-square and linear regression. The linear regression established the link between variables. The data was presented in tables through percentage, frequencies, and standard deviations. The study found that Agri inputs contributed to farmers' productivity with a high-level average mean of 3.97 and a standard deviation of 0.808. The study also found that the overall average mean was 3.6 with a standard deviation of 1.0, implying that respondents agreed that the skills obtained from SAIP on capacity building of modern agriculture. The study also found an overall mean of 3.83 and a standard deviation of 0.95, implying that the respondents agreed that the SAIP helps farmers of Gwiza access finance and the market. Therefore, the statistics on test on Agri-inputs, capacity building, and access to the market by farmers has provided enough evidence to conclude that SAIP has contributed to the welfare of farmers because variables are statistically significant because their p-values equal 0.000 or less than 0.005 (sign=0.0000<0.05). The study results showed variations in the dependent variable that the statistical model predicts; an adjusted R squared value of 0.862 shows that about 86% of changes in the welfare of farmers are explained by Agri inputs, capacity building of farmers, and access to a market of farmers; therefore, it shows that the model has a good fit. The study recommended that stakeholders should be involved in the management of the projects.