Analysis of Poverty Among Farmer Entrepreneurs in Jos, Nigeria

The study seeks to examine the relationship between Entrepreneurship practices and the level of poverty among farmers in Jos, Nigeria. The study covered small and medium scale farmer entrepreneurs within Jos North, Jos South and Jos East. A sample size of 518 was obtained from the population of 834 at 5% error tolerance and 95% level of confidence, using Simple Random Sampling. 505(97.5%) of the questionnaire distributed were returned while 13(2.5%) of the questionnaire distributed were not returned. self-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. The study conducted a pre-test on the questionnaire to ensure the validity of the instrument. Data collected were presented in frequency tables. The study used Foster, Greer and Thorbecke (FGT) index and Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to measure the level of poverty. The study revealed that the level of poverty among farmers in the study area is high, result analysis also indicates that majority of the male respondents 215(85.7%) are poor using FGT, compared to MPI with 248(78.5%) non-poor males. The study recommends among other things that there is the urgent need to increase entrepreneurship education and awareness among the farmers so as to improve their living condition by increasing their income.