Gender access to microfinance banks’ credit and profitablity of cassava production in Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigated the gender inequalities in accessing microfinance credit for profitable cassava production in Imo State,Nigeria. Two-stage sampling technique was used to select    120 respondents comprising 60 male and 60 female cassava farming households. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data such as age, marital status, educational level, years of operating an account, savings in the bank, cooperative membership, collateral provision, amount of credit demanded and obtained by the farmers, as well as, costs of farm inputs and revenue of cassava output. Descriptive statistics, net income model and t-test statistics were used to achieve the objectives. The mean amount of credit obtained for female and male cassava farmers was N252,272.73 and N199,137.93 which was 80% and 76% of the amount of credit demanded respectively with the t-cal value of 0.021 less than t-crit.(5%). The farmers’ net margins were N941,537.89 and N889,304.24 for female and male farmers respectively with t-cal value of 0.00138 less than t-crit.(5%). As evident from the analysis, gender of the farmers does not significantly influence their credit access and profitability in cassava production. Regression analyses showed that years of operating account, saving in bank and membership of cooperatives significantly influenced the amount of loan accessed by both gender. Cassava farmers of both gender are therefore encouraged to operate functional accounts with microfinance banks for a reasonable length of time, maintain substantial savings with the bank and form and/or join existing farmers’ cooperatives to increase their access to microfinance credit and improve profitability of cassava production