DETERMINANTS OF POVERTY STATUS OF RURAL FARMING HOUSEHOLDS IN OSUN STATE, NIGERIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51406/jagse.v12i1.1367Keywords:
Farmers empowerment programme, poverty measures, Tobit regression model, farming householdsAbstract
This study examined the determinants of poverty status of rural farming households in Osun State, South western, Nigeria. A total of one hundred and twenty representative farming households comprising of the beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of the Farmers Empowerment Programme (FEP) in the state were used for the study. Descriptive statistics, the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke class of weighted poverty indices as well as the Tobit regression model were used to analyse the data generated from the survey. The results of the poverty indices show that 35 per cent of the beneficiaries of the Farmers Empowerment Programme were poor as against 55 per cent for the non-beneficiaries of the programme. The regression results show household size, amount of credit utilised and annual farm income as the factors influencing the poverty status of the rural farming households in the state. The lower incidence of poverty and access to credit for the beneficiaries of FEP in the state are indications of better welfare for this category of farming households. It is therefore suggested that the programme be sustained for poverty reduction among farming households in the state.
References
Dhanani, S., Islam, I. 2002. Poverty, vulnerability and social protection in Indonesia. World Development, 30 (7): 1211-1231.
Datta, D. 2004. Microcredit in rural Bangladesh: Is it reaching the poor? Journal of Microfinance, 6 (1):55-81.
Fagernas S., Wallace, L. 2007. Determinants of poverty in Sierra Leone, 2003. Economic and Statistics Analysis Unit Working Paper 19, Overseas Development Institute (ODI).
Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) 2008. Gender differences in the transitional economy of Vietnam. FAO, United Nation.
Foster, J., Greer, J., Thorbecke, E.1984. A class of decomposable poverty measures. Econometrica, 52:761-765.
Hossain, F. 2002. Small loans, big claims. Journal of Foreign Policy, 12 (2): 79-82.
Hulme, D. 2003. Why does poverty endure? Mayamana and Mofizul’s Story. Chronic Poverty Research Centre Working Paper 22, IDPM, University of Manchester. www.chronicpoverty.org.
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) 1993. The state of world rural poverty: A profile of Latin America and the Caribbean Pp. 1-92.
Martins, M.F.O., Fernandes, J.M. 2008. The determinant of poverty in Cape Verde: An econometric approach. Http: www.CBS.org : Accessed on Monday 16th of March, 2009.
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2006. 2006 Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaire (CWIQ) Survey, National Summary, Federal Republic of Nigeria.
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2009. www.nigerianstat.gov.ng
National Poverty Eradication Programme, 2006. Success stories, Abuja, Nigeria
Olorunsanya, E. O., Omotesho, O.A. 2012. A gender analysis of poverty among rural farming households in North Central Nigeria. European Journal of Social Sciences, 28 (3): 366-376.
Olorunsanya, E. O., Omotesho, O. A. 2011. A gender analysis of poverty profile of rural farming households in North Central, Nigeria. International Journal of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development 4 (2):11-26
Simanowitz, A., Nuna, B., Kasim, S.2000. Overcoming the obstacles of identifying the poorest families in participatory approaches in microfinance and micro enterprise development. Participation Group at IDS, UK
World Bank 2011. World Development Report. The World Bank Washington, DC
