International Economics

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the adequacy of the capital investment decisions of
Youth Integrated Agricultural Project in Kwara State. The project has two parts: Youth Integrated
Farm Training Centre and Farm Settlements. The Youth Integrated Farm Training Centre has
produced 650 farmer-graduates, who are now working in the three locations where Farm Settlements
are. The sixth batch consisting of 66 farmer-graduates provided the population of the study. From this
population a purposive sample of 46 potential respondents was selected. These people filled a
researcher-developed questionnaire. Thirty six correctly filled copies of the questionnaire were
collected from the respondents. The responses of the thirty six framer-graduates were analyzed based
on four research questions derived from the four objectives of the study. The major findings from this
analysis were: (i) The Kwara State Government has invested a total of N65,408,129 on the Youth
Integrated Agricultural Project in the last ten years; (ii) Seventy two percent of the respondents
disagreed with the statements that the allowance paid to the trainees was sufficient. Moreover, ninety
two percent of them disagreed with the statement that the empowerment packaged given to them to
work in the Farm Settlements was adequate. In the same vein, seventy six percent disagreed that
infrastructure in the Farm settlements were adequate; (iii) But the respondents agreed that
infrastructure in the Farm Training Centre were adequate. In sum the State Government’s capital
investment decisions were not enough to make the Youth Integrated Agricultural project an
unqualified success.