Assessment of cooperative credit and farmers poverty status in Ogun State, Nigeria

This study assessed cooperative credit and farmers’ poverty status in Ogun State, Nigeria. The issue of-whether or not a household is poor is widely recognized as an important, though crude indicator of a-household’s well-being. This is reflected in the central role the concept of poverty plays in analysis of-social protection policy. The majority of the rural populace in the study area depends entirely on farming and farming activities for survival and generation of income, as well as using the activities to supplement their main source of income. A total of 120 respondents were selected through a multiple stage random sampling techniques. The study revealed that majority of the respondents in the study area was male 80.8per cent. Larger percentage of 95.0per cent of the respondents was married. Respondents who reached secondary level of education had a greater percentage of 35.8per cent. A larger percentage of 27.5 per-cent earned between N200,000 and N300,000 per month. The study showed that the poverty incidence (P0) was discovered to be 30per cent the poverty depth/gap (P1) was found to be 6.18per cent and the-poverty severity (P2) was 2.07per cent. Size of household of the respondents was significant at 1per cent-which indicated that it had great importance in determining poverty in the study area and was positive-implying that the higher the household size the higher the probability of being poor. Farm size, formal-education, and off-farm income were also significant at 1level and the three were negative implying that-the higher the off-farm income of the household the lower the probability of being poor in the study area. The study recommends poverty alleviation programmes should focus on building up the human capital of the entire farming population and land use decree should be reviewed to encourage appreciable increase in the size of farm holdings.