SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF RURAL WOMEN ACCESS TO FORMAL AGRICULTURAL CREDIT

Abstract

Rural -women in Kaduna state are actively involved in agricultural production. They constitute the bulk of agricultural producers in the state. Most of these women are poor and the only alternative for raising capital has continued to elude them. Obtaining loan from the banks (formal) was more problematic than the informal source that is, the non organised sector. This study therefore, investigated rural women access to formal credit. Primary data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion (FGD). A multi-stage random sampling technique was applied in the selection of eighty (80) women farmers. Each Local Government Areas had (40) respondents. The analytical tools used are frequencies, crosstab and percentages. The chi- square was also used to test the null hypotheses that there was a significant relationship between socio-economic factors and access to credit. It was discovered that 17 percent of rural women sourced credit from formal sources such as commercial banks, agricultural banks) and 83 percent. They got theirs from informal sources such as friends, relatives, NGOs and personal saving. The difficulty in accessing formal credit was due to socio-economic factors. The cross tabulation and chi- square analysis showed that occupation, education and landownership had influenced on access to agricultural credit. Socio-economic factors like age, family size, farm size had no influence on access to credit. Recommendations were made which includes reviewing the Land Use Act, improving education for rural women amongst others.