Analysis of Peasant Farmers’ Access to Agricultural Credit in Benue State, Nigeria

This study analysed peasant farmers’ access to agricultural credit in Benue State, Nigeria. Data were collected from 130 randomly sampled peasant farmers in Benue State using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to analyse data collected. The study showed that majority of the farmers (69.23%) had access to agricultural credit. Majority of the farmers (42.22%) accessed amount of credit ranging between 5,000 and less than 50,000 Naira. The predominant source of credit among the respondents was money lending (44.44%). The result of the binary logistic regression showed that at 5% level of significance, age, farm investment, access to extension services, household size, awareness, education, farm size, membership of cooperative society had significant influence on access to agricultural credit among rural farmers in the study area. Delay in approval/disbursement (supported by 52.31% of farmers), credit and lack of collateral security (supported by 52.31% of farmers) constituted the most limiting constraint to sourcing agricultural credit among the respondents. Efforts should be made to create more awareness about the existence of formal agricultural credits for agricultural production among the peasant farmers. The farmers should also be enlightened on how to go about accessing agricultural credit facilities. There should be a deliberate policy to ensure that peasant farmers have access to adequate credit facilities. Efforts should be made to improve the access of peasant farmers to relevant extension services as this would help increase their access to credit facilities. In addition, more rural farmers should be encouraged to join cooperative associations as this can increase their chances of accessing formal agricultural credit facilities because of the comparative advantages associated with membership of cooperative societies. Stringent measures coupled with loan monitoring activities should be put in place to check and reduce the incidence of agricultural credit misappropriation by beneficiaries.