Analysis Of Small-Scale Cassava-Based Farmers’ Demand And Utilization For Microfinance Banks Credit In Imo State, Nigeria.

 ABSTRACT

The study analyzed small-scale cassava-based farmers’ demand and utilization for microfinance banks credit in Imo State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to: examine the socio-economic characteristics of small-scale cassava-based farmers; determine the amount of credit demanded and obtained by small-scale cassava-based farmers; estimate the factors influencing the amount of credit demanded by small-scale cassava-based farmers; estimate the determinants on the amount of credit obtained; ascertain the uses of the loan obtained by smallscale cassava-based farmers; determine the repayment performance of smallscale cassava-based farmers and examine the determinants of the amount of loan repaid by small- scale cassava-based farmers in Imo state. Multi-stage random sampling techniques were adopted for this study and-primary data were collected using structured questionnaire. Sample size of sixty (60) respondents was randomly selected from six (6) microfinance banks. Descriptive statistics, repayment formula, multiple regression technique and ANOVA technique were applied in the analyses. The results of the analyses showed that the mean age of the respondents was 49 years. The mean household size was 8 persons, while mean farming experience was 16 years and mean level of education was 13 years. The mean farm size was 0.67 hectare, and mean values of amount of credit demanded, obtained and repaid were ₦268,000, ₦109,675 and ₦ 118,833.33 respectively. The repayment performance of cassava-based farmers was 93.6%. The level of education, farm size, transaction cost, collateral, and distance from home to the bank, farming experience, and cost of credit had significant effect on the amount of credit demanded. The level of farm income, cost of credit, household size, age, farm size and gender have significant effect on the amount of credit obtained from microfinance banks. The level of education, farm income, farm size, amount of loan borrowed, cost of credit, household size and faming experience have significant effect in determine the repayment performance of small-scale cassava-based farmers in the study area. The ANOVA results showed that there was no significant difference on the amount of credit demanded by small-scale cassava-based farmers in the three agricultural zones of Imo State. The study recommended that by increasing the amount of credit disbursed, policy target of establishing microfinance banks will be attained, resulting to high repayment performance and improvement on cassava farming.

Keywords: small-scale, cassava-based farmers, demand and utilization, microfinance banks credit and socio-economic