ISSN 2360-798X
Abstract
Accepted 30th May, 2014
As African policy makers strive to attain Food Security and alleviate poverty by 2015, Maize was highlighted as one of the main crops through which agricultural production policies could be effective – “BIOMASS”. It is in this light that MIDENO’s schemes of Micro credit and agricultural education of 2005 under (GP-DERUDEP) become central in rural transformation for sustainable production. Thus, the study examines MIDENO’s schemes by a random survey of 250 farmers who participated under the Grass Field Participatory and Decentralised Rural Development Project (GP-DERUDEP). The inaccurate nature of farm records necessitated the adoption of the multinomial logit estimation technique from which the study investigates the influence of MIDENO’s schemes on rural productivity and transformation. It is found that, the micro loans and agricultural educational scheme contributed significantly to the rural transformation but the rate of change in levels of production is impeded by the conservativeness of farmers in adapting to the present challenges towards food security. Thus, the study recommends a more sustainable training of agriculturist in a complete curriculum as a sustainable solution. MIDENO should train farmers on writing sustainable agricultural projects that fetch real funding.
Keywords: Zero waste principle, micro credit, broad-based agricultural project, sustainable production, agro-ecological farming practices, “Biomass”