Analysis of Women Farmers’ Participation in Youth Team in Action Supporting Community Initiated Development (YOTASCID) Microcredit Programme, Kaduna State, Nigeria
Abstract
Agriculture plays a fundamental role in economic growth and development. Over 80% of women in various farming communities in Nigeria depend on agriculture as the main source of livelihood, with majority living below the poverty line. Moreover, problems of accessing credit and farm inputs continue to worsen their welfare. In the face of these challenges, financing women farmers has been one of the major concerns of agricultural development efforts in the country. In an effort to cushion the effects of these challenges, the youth team in action supporting community initiated development (YOTASCID); a non-governmental organization (NGO) has evolved over the years with the sole objective of enhancing women farmers’ welfare. However, despite the availability of microcredit, limited empirical information exists on the factors influencing women farmers’ participation in the (YOTASCID) microcredit programme. Primary data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire among 210 respondents, and employed a logit model in the analysis. The core findings of the study were that accessibility to credit, education, household size, occupation, farming experience, farm size, years of cooperative involvement as well as extension contact were the main factors influencing women participation. The study gives policy insights on the key areas of intervention in ensuring that the (YOTASCID) microcredit programme and other related NGO programmes are given capacity to serve the needs and constraints facing women farmers in Kaduna State.
NAJ supports free online communication and exchange of knowledge as the most effective way of ensuring that the fruits of research and development practice are made widely available. It is therefore committed to open access, which, for authors, enables the widest possible dissemination of their findings and, for readers, increases their ability to discover pertinent information. The Journal adopts and uses the CC: BY license and is open access. This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Copyright for articles published in this Journal is retained by the Journal.
