Influence Of Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme On Rice Production In Northern Agricultural Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study determined the influence of capacity utilization and poverty alleviation initiatives of Achor Borrowers’ Sheme on rice production in Northern Agricultural Zone, Cross River State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to determine the influence of capacity utilization and poverty alleviation initiatives of Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme on rice production in the study area. Two null hypotheses were tested at .05 level of significance. Ex-post Facto research design was adopted for the study with a population of 3574 registered rice farmers and 30 RIFAN Coordinators in Northern Agricultural Zone, Cross River State with a sample of 381 respondents involved in the study. Capacity Utilization Initiative of Anchor Borrowers Scheme on Rice Production Questionnaire (CUIABSRPQ) was used for data collection and was face validated by three experts. The reliability of the instrument was determined using Cronbach Alpha method and a coefficient of .87 was obtained. Data collected was analyzed using means to answer the research questions and independent t-test statistic to test the null hypotheses. The results revealed that respondents agreed that the Anchor Borrowers Scheme influenced has influence their capacity utilization and poverty alleviation initiatives on rice production. Findings from the test of hypotheses revealed a no significant difference in the mean ratings of respondents on the influence of capacity utilization and poverty alleviation initiatives of Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme on rice production in the study area (t=1.58; p-value 0.42) and (t=.84 p-value 0.40) respectively. It was concluded that Anchor Borrowers’ Scheme builds capacity and poverty initiatives

 of farmers and influence their rice production abilities. It was recommended that federal Governments extend the Anchor Borrower’s scheme to other invaluable crops such as maize and cocoa, groundnut among others because of the economic benefits accruable from the scheme to farmers