Determinants of Co Operative Loan Access among Women Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria

The study focused on the determinants of cooperative loan access among women farmers in Ona Ara and Egbeda Local Government areas of Oyo State, Nigeria. The broad objective of this study is to investigate the activities of women cooperative farmers in food crop production through the use of cooperative loans. Both primary and secondary sources of data were used to gather information and a two stage sampling technique was adopted to investigate 120 women farmers. Descriptive and quantitative statistics, double hurdle model and Pearson Product Moment correlation co efficient r estimate were employed in analysing the data. The result of the analysis indicated that the majority 80.2 of the women farmers were between 31 – 40 years and the mean age was 25 years. This implied that most of the co operative women farmers were young and agile. This may help in farm production activities and therefore, their ability to access and utilise loans appropriately. Again, about 5 percent of the cooperative women farmers had no formal education, 7.5 percent had primary education, while 86.9 percent had secondary education. The average farming experience of the farmers was 5.6 years while the average household size was 4.5 years. In addition, the women farmers were largely 72.6 percent Christians and most of them use the accessed loan facilities for other secondary purposes such as payment of children's tuition fees, household consumption and liquidating previous debts. This development often led to cases of loan default and poor repayment regime among the women farmers. The age, farming experience and the number of hired labour were some of the significant parameters that determined the level of access to co operative loan facilities. The result of the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Co efficient estimation indicated that about 27 percent of the quantity of food crop output of the women farmers was explained by their level of access to co operative loan facilities. In conclusion therefore, it is important to increase the level of access of women farmers to cooperative credit facilities, so that, they can judiciously use such facilities on food crop production. Cases of loan diversion, among cooperative women farmers should also be discouraged. With this, the level food crop production of the women farmers will be enhanced and ultimately their household income will improve. Olagunju, Oluwaseun Emmanuel | Umebali, Emmanuel. E. "Determinants of Co-Operative Loan Access among Women Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-6 | Issue-5 , August 2022, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd50448.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/management/business-economics/50448/determinants-of-cooperative-loan-access-among-women-farmers-in-oyo-state-nigeria/olagunju-oluwaseun-emmanuel