Effect of Poverty on Risk attitude of Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria

International Journal of Economics and Management Studies

© 2019 by SSRG - IJEMS Journal

Volume 6 Issue 9

Year of Publication : 2019

Authors : Sanusi, W.A., Tojola, S.O and Fanifosi, G.E

10.14445/23939125/IJEMS-V6I9P113

How to Cite?

Sanusi, W.A., Tojola, S.O and Fanifosi, G.E, "Effect of Poverty on Risk attitude of Smallholder Maize Farmers in Oyo State, Nigeria," SSRG International Journal of Economics and Management Studies, vol. 6,  no. 9, pp. 109-114, 2019. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/23939125/IJEMS-V6I9P113

Abstract:

The study examined the effect of poverty on risk attitude of smallholder maize farmers in Oyo State. A multistage sampling technique was adopted to sampled 207 smallholder maize farmers in the study area. The study employed descriptive statistics, Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index and instrumental variable (IV) regression model to analysed the data collected. The findings revealed that majority of the respondents were male, married with anaverage a household size of 7 and a farm size of 3.36 hectares. The result of FGT poverty analysis showed that Poverty incidence (P0) was 0.406, which indicated that 40.6% of the respondents were poor in the study area, the poverty gap / depth (P1) was 0.106 and poverty severity (P2) was 0.036. The study further revealed that majority of the maize farmers in the study area were high risk averse (55.07%) while 22.71% of the farmers prefer taking risk. In profiling the risk attitude by their poverty status, the result showed that 23.81% of the poor respondents were risk preferer, 9.52% were low risk averter, 13.10% were intermediate risk averter while 53.57% of the respondents were high risk averter. Also, about 22% of the non-poor respondents were risk preferer, 4.07% were low risk averter, 17.89% were intermediate risk averter while 56.10% of the respondents were high risk averter. The result further showed that gender, household size, labour, farm size and farm experience were the main factors influencing risk attitude of maize farmers in the study area. The study thereforeconcluded that farm income and asset maize farmers need to be improved through provision of effective social safety nets projects.

Keywords:

Poverty, Risk, Smallholder, Maize, Management

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