In Nigeria, one of the major constraints to the decline in agriculture's contribution to the economy is inaccessibility to capital by small scale farmers. This study therefore examined the determinants of access and demand for formal credit by small scale cassava farmers in Okene, Okehi and Adavi Local Government Areas of Kogi State. Data were collected from 120 cassava farmers; descriptive and double hurdle model were used to analyse the data. The result of the analysis showed that the sampled farmers were young with an average of about one hectare of farm land. Majority of the farmers were literate and experienced in farming. The result from the first hurdle revealed that cassava farmers' access to formal credit was influenced by farm size, farming experience at 5% probability level and farm income at 1% probability level. On the other hand, farmers' age, level of education and cost of borrowing significantly influenced the amount of loan demanded at 1% probability level. Lack of collateral/guarantor, administrative bottleneck and unfriendly attitude of workers of the financial institutions with weighted mean of 3.47, 2.88 and 2.77 respectively were the major constraints to formal credit access and demand among cassava farmers. It was therefore recommended that cassava farmers should form viable cooperative societies to pull their resources together for easy access to formal credit. Financial institutions workers should be friendlier and simplify the processing and disbursement process of credit administration.
The study assessed the effect of the 2012 flood disaster on cassava productivity in Kogi State and identified the adaptation measures and resilience capacity of the cassava farmers affected by the flood. To achieve the objectives of the study, the "with and without" approach involving the flood affected farmers and control group was employed to ascertain and compare the effect of the flood on cassava productivity. Simple descriptive statistics, productivity index, z-test of two means and multiple regression analysis were employed to analyse the data collected. The result indicated a significant cassava productivity differentials of about 56% between the flood affected farmers and the control population. The multiple regression analysis result further confirmed that flood had a significant effect on cassava productivity amongst the respondents at 5% level of significance. Against this backdrop, there is the need for farmers to continue to diversify their farming practices with a view to mitigating the effect of future flood occurrence, adopt drought resistant cassava varieties while the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) should in conjunction with the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET), Kogi State Government and the Media create effective climatic situation awareness for cassava farmers within the State with the view to containing and minimizing the adverse effect of flooding.
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