ABSTRACT
The study examined smallholder farmers’ access to Non-Governmental organizations Micro-Finance Institutes (NGOs-MFIs) credit scheme in Edo State. Specifically it examined their socio-economic characteristics, identified the NGOs MFIs credit scheme available to smallholder farmers in the study area, determined their level of access to the NGOs-MFI credit scheme, examined their utilization of NGOs-MFI credit, identified their perceptions of the NGOs-MFI credit scheme, and identified the constraints limiting their access to NGOs-MFIs credit. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 180 smallholder farmers from the study area. A structured interview schedule was used to elicit needed information from the respondents. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product moment correlation, and linear regression were used to analyze the data.
The output from the result indicates that majority (61.7%) of the farmers who accessed credit were male, over half (51.7%) of the farmers had a household size of 6 to 10 members. Most (90%) of the farmers were educated. The result also shows that lift above poverty organization (LAPO), better life organization, Owen Obaseki Foundation, and Emmanuel Arigbe Osula Foundation were the available NGO-MFI credit scheme to the farmers from the ones that were studied in the State, but only had access to LAPO MFI credit scheme (mean = 2.61). The farmers utilized the credit mainly for crop production, and had a favourable perception about the credit scheme. Poor credit information (mean = 4.13), lack of bank account (mean = 3.82), the risk of agricultural products (mean = 3.76), lack of collateral (mean = 3.63), poor market structure (mean = 3.19, SD = 1.46), and land default (mean = 3.06) were serious constraints, while credit misallocation to non-intended beneficiary, and high interest rate were not serious. There was a significant relationship between their level of education (r = 0.23, p < 0.05), household size (r = 0.15, p < 0.05), membership of association (r = 0.21, p < 0.05) and their access to NGOs- MFIs credit scheme in Edo state.
It was concluded that although NGOs-MFIs credit scheme were available to the smallholder farmers, there was a poor access to the NGOs-MFI credit scheme in Edo State, it was therefore recommended that more awareness should be created by micro-credit providers, the government agricultural extension agency on the importance of farm expansion and the need to access credit for their agricultural activities.
