Access to microfinance facilities among agriprenuers in Abia State, Nigeria

The study evaluated the level of access and use of microfinance by farmers in Abia State, Nigeria. A purposive sampling technique was adopted using a list of 2018 microfinance beneficiaries generated from Bank of Industry’s database and other agricultural enterprise lending institutions (LAPO, First Bank) Bank of Agriculture). A total of 150 respondents were chosen from a sampling frame of beneficiaries of microfinance programme, and administered with a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and ordered logit regression analysis were used to analyze the data collected. Results showed that majority of the farmers had moderate access to microfinance facilities and that consumer microfinance loan was more readily available to the respondents with a mean of 1.94. The coefficients of the multiple choice questions on ordered logit regression analysis estimated significant factors influencing credit access as marital status and distance to microfinance source is long (+ve at 5% each), educational level (-ve at 5%), loan repayment period and inconsistent policy (-ve at 1% each). Others are; livevestock production, medium scale, small scale, local source of finance and commercial source of finance (=ve at 1% each) and long bureaucratic process (-ve at 10%). Further analysis on constraints to access to microfinance revealed that distance to microfinance source, no internet facilities, lack of co-operate affair commission registration and inconsistent policy were the most importatnt constraints militating against access to microfinance by agriprenuers in the study area with mean scores ≥ 2.5. The results therefore call for policy direction to ensure speedy procedures/ requirements to encourage farmers to access loans and more liaison offices for microfinance institutions should be established at locations closer to the farmers.Keywords: Microfinance, Access, , Ordered logistics regression model, and Constraint

Analyses of resource use, productivity and technical efficiency among local rice farmers in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

This study analyzed the effect of resource use on productivity and technical efficiency of rice farmers in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using well-structured questionnaire from 40 rice farmers randomly selected. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, means and percentages and econometric models such as regression, stochastic frontier and instrumental variable estimator were adopted for data analyses using STATA 13.0. Rice production in this study area is commercialized with about 50% of farmers cultivating 2.2hectares of land. The ordinary least squares regression (OLS) estimates found household size to be significant and negatively related to yield of rice at 1% and training and mandays used for planting at 5% level each. Conversely, number of times trained in rice production and use of fertilizer in production were all significant and positively related to the yield of rice in the study area at I%, level each and land ownership at 5% level. MLE result further revealed that while farmers are 65% technically efficient in use of input resources, the estimated value of γ is 0.796934 which clearly indicates that 79.69% of total variation rice yield is due to technical inefficiency. Government need to discover the synergies between credit/fertilizer supply and farmers and develop an efficient and on-time distribution channels for farm inputs to allow farmers attain their productive potential in rice farming and in addition, identify the potentials of farmer clusters for market development for their produce to generate increased income for their production. Training is a critical factor influencing output and thus calls for increased capacity building among farmers in rice production to help them cope with exogenous elements such as changing weather conditions.Keywords: Technical efficiency, Stochastic frontier, Output and Rice farmer