Agricultural Resource Access and the Influence of Socioeconomic Characteristics Among Rural Women in Borno State, Nigeria

Abstract

Agricultural resource access and the influence of socioeconomic characteristics among women in Borno State, Nigeria was the main objective of this study. The data for the study were generated by the use of structured questionnaire which was administered to 266 respondents obtained by the use of multistage random sampling technique. The techniques used to analyze the data generated for this study were descriptive statistics and the binary logistic regression analyses. The major findings of the study showed that respondent’s socioeconomic characteristics indicated high levels of illiteracy (59.4%), non-membership of cooperatives (89.8%), no extension contact (72%) and low access to credit (89.4%). Access to production resources including fertilizers, agrochemicals, family and hired laours and land ownership were low. Some socio- economic factors influenced the likelihood of women’s access to production resources. These factors included cooperative membership, years of schooling, farm income, extension contact, off-farm income, family size, age, farming experience and farm size. It was recommended that agricultural development planners should work at enhancing rural women’s access to socioeconomic factors which enhance their access to production resources for more efficient agricultural productivity.