Effects of Micro-Credit on Livestock Production among Smallholder Livestock Farmers in Yakurr LGA, Cross River State, Nigeria

The study analysed the effect of micro-credit on livestock production among smallholder livestock farmers in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State in Nigeria. Data for the study were obtained using a 3-stage random sampling procedure and analysed with descriptive statistics and multiple regression. Results showed that 55.3 % of the respondents were males, 48.7 % were aged between 40-49 years, 52 % were married, 46.6 % had secondary education, 48.7 % had farming experience of between 6-10 years, 74.7 % had less than 1ha farm size, 64 %, 25.3 % and 10.7 % reared poultry, goat and swine respectively. The results also showed that 78 % obtained micro-credit from informal sources while 48 % obtained between 61, 000.00 and 80, 000.00. The R2 was 0.73 showing that 73 % of the total variations in the dependent variable were explained by the independent variables in the regression model which is a good fit. This result indicated that micro-credit had significant effect on livestock production in the study area. Livestock farmers were constrained by high interest rate charged 33 %, few number of financial institutions 23.3 % and high cost of feed 20 %. Formal financial institutions should extend their services to the area by opening more branches and government should help livestock farmers by subsidizing the cost price of feeds, medication and vaccine.