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Abstract

This study evaluates the impact of adopting yam minisetts technology on poverty among yam farming households in Ekiti state, Nigeria. This study utilizes cross-sectional data from 600 households, collected in 2016, from twelve communities. This study examined the socioeconomic characteristics of yam farmers, determined the poverty profile of yam minisetts technology adopters and non-adopters and it further examined the effect of yam minisetts technology on poverty reduction among yam farming households using descriptive statistics, Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT). We find that the poverty incidence (P0) was 0.5642; poverty gap (P1) was 0.3173 while the poverty severity (P2) was 0.2131. The results of the Propensity Score Matching (PSM) indicated that adoption of yam minisett technology had a positive and significant (P=0.05) effect on consumption expenditure and also indicated that the adopters were less likely to be poor by about 6.8%-91.9% across the ATT estimator. Thus, has the power to lift the poor farmers above the poverty line. This study supports agricultural development programmes for farmers in order to effectively reduce hunger and poverty. Provision of farm inputs and improved seed varieties to the farmers at subsidized rate in order to stimulate adoption.