ACCESSIBILITY OF CASSAVA FARMERS TO CREDIT FACILITY IN OYO STATE NIGERIA

• B. O. Akinwalere

  Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology Federal University Technology Akure, Nigeria.

  Author

This study examined the accessibility of cassava farmers' to credit facility in Oyo State Nigeria. The study also examined the socio-economic characteristics of the cassava farmers, identify the sources of their credit facilities for cassava production, processing and marketing of cassava, accessed their financial inputs, and determine their income before and after accessing credit facility. A Multi-stage sampling technique was used for data collection. In the first stage, a purposive sampling was used to select Lagelu, Akinyele and Ido Local Government Areas in Ibadan, oyo state, Nigeria. Random sampling was used to select three communities from each of the three Local Government Areas and from each community, 10 respondents were selected randomly to give a total of 90 respondents. The respondents were cassava farmers and processors. The analyses of the socio-economic characteristics revealed that the majority of respondents that were involved in the cassava production and processing activities in the study area were males, the ages ranged between 17 and 65years and the majority (38.9%) were between the ages 49-56years with the mean age of 49 years. Most (96.7%) were married with a high household size of 6 to 10. The level of education of respondents revealed that 43.3% had one form of education or the other which could enhance performance in production and processing activities. The primary occupation of all the respondents was farming, some were artisans and the monthly income of most of them was less than ₦30,000.00. The hypothesis tested showed that there is a significant relationship between Farmers' access to financial inputs and the effects of financial institution on their income (r= 0.000, p= 0.456), and t-test showed that there is a significant difference between farmers' Income before and after accessing credits (t=11.09, p=0.000). It was recommended that government should come up with policies that will make credit provision available to farmers at very low interest rate.

1. B. O. Akinwalere, Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology Federal University Technology Akure, Nigeria.

   Department of Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology Federal University Technology Akure, Nigeria.

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