Accessibility to International Fund for Agricultural Development-Value Chain Development Programme Support Services among Rice Farmers in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Access to support services plays a crucial role in farmers’ decision to utilise the services and non-access to support services limits the  extent of utilising such services. Therefore, accessibility to International Fund for Agricultural Development-Value Chain Development  Programme, (IFAD-VCDP) support services among rice farmers in Yewa North Local Government Area of Ogun State was assessed in this  study. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted to sample 181 rice farmers. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential  statistics at p = 0.05. Result reveals that more than half (50.8%) of the respondents were between the ages of 31-40years with mean age  of 36 years. A little above average of the respondents (53.6%) of the respondents grew both rice variety and earned annual income below  N300,000 (52.5%). Respondents’ main sources of credits were mostly from cooperative/bank (46.4%), off takers (22.7%) and credit from  IFAD-VCDP (18.8%). Respondents had high level of accessibility to IFAD-VCDP support services (61.9%). High rigour in procurement of  credit (0.791), untimely disbursement or delivery of inputs (0.653) and unavailability of adequate credit (0.546) constituted the major  constraints in accessing most IFAD support services. A significant relationship existed between sex ( 2=13.569, p<0.05), marital status ( 2= 195.723, p<0.005), annual income ( 2 = 10.908, p< 0.05), source of fund ( 2= 83.462, p<0.05), cultivation type ( 2 = 36.769, p<0.05),  household size (r= 0.340**, p<0.05), years of experience (r= 0.479**, p<0.05) and respondents’ access to IFAD-VCDP support services. It is  recommended that more effort should be made by IFAD-VCDP to make sure some support services that were least accessible i.e  irrigation facilities, threshers, among others be made accessible to farmers.