An Assessment of the Effects of Root and Tuber Expansion

The study was carried out to assess the effects of the rootand tuber expansion programme (rtep) on the livelihoodof project beneficiaries in kwara state, nigeria. a 3-stagesampling technique was adopted for the study, selecting a totalof 80 cassava processors from two agricultural developmentprogramme (adp) zones in the state. structured interviewschedule was used as instrument to elicit primary data fromprocessors. descriptive statistics was used to describe thesocio economic characteristics of the respondents. the t-testwas used to test the hypotheses on the relationship between theincome and livelihood of rtep beneficiaries and non beneficiaries,while those on the socio economic characteristics wastested using the mann-whitney (u) test. the findings of thestudy showed that rtep provided more than 73 percent oftotal cassava processing equipment in the study area. thestudy further revealed that there was no significant differencein the socio-economic characteristics and livelihood of rtepand non rtep participants. there was however a significantdifference in their income. amongst others, the study recommendedmassive investment in subsidizing critical cassavaprocessing equipment, and provision of micro-credit at low interestrates to cassava processors.