ABSTRACT

The study investigated the effects of remittances on rural farm households’ income and livelihood in Delta State. A multistage random sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 254 rural farm household respondents used for the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) model of poverty analysis. Results showed that when the different sources of income to the rural farm households were compared, remittances were the third-highest contributors to the total rural farm household income and consumption after agriculture, and forest and tree products, respectively. Income from remittances helped to reduce poverty among rural farm households. This is because when remittance income was excluded from a household, total income, incidence, gap, and severity of poverty increased from 0.4766, 0.2527, and 0.0639 respectively to 0.6272, 0.3869, and 0.1497 respectively. Recommendations among others include making concrete policies that should encourage the flow and efficient use of remittances by rural farm households.  There should be the enlightenment of rural farm households on the utilization of remittances. The government should review some migration laws to reduce the risk of migration since the remittances by these migrants improve the income of the migrants’ rural households.