Development Outcomes of Fadama III among Fish Farmers in Nigeria: Evidence from Lagos State

This paper is focussed on the analysis of development outcomes of Fadama III programme among fish farmers in Nigeria with evidence from Lagos state. Random sampling technique was used to select 141 fish farmers from the Fadama III participants and non-participants from three agricultural divisions. Data were collected through structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. While propensity score matching approach was employed to estimate the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT) using productivity level as an outcome, double-difference approach and Gini coefficient were used to estimate the project's impact on the income of the beneficiaries. The double difference estimator showed that the fish farmers who participated in Fadama III programme had 62.4% increase in their income. Education level, income level before the programme and land ownership were factors that positively influenced the probability of participating in Fadama III. The ATT estimates showed that the intervention/programme had a positive impact on the production level of participants to the tune of 2.15 tonnes per year. The Gini coefficient also showed that the fish farmers were better-off as their Gini-index reduced from 0.755 to 0.489 after participation in Fadama III. Fish farming was found to be generally profitable in the study area with a net profit of 47.36 million per annum while the Benefit Cost (B/C) ratio was 3.95. The income of fish farmers, after participation in Fadama III project, was positively and significantly influenced by the occupation and income of the farmers before participation in the project. The beneficiaries/participants surpassed the target of 40% increase in income set for the project. The beneficiaries were therefore better-off after participating in the programme. It is recommended that other farmers having no access to large income should be encouraged to participate and be a part of the ongoing Fadama III additional financing initiative.