DETERMINANTS OF CREDIT ACCESSIBILITY BY ARABLE CROP FARMERS IN ODO-OTIN LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OSUN STATE NIGERIA

The study assessed agricultural credit accessibility by arable crop farmers in Odo-Otin Local Government Area, Osun State, Nigeria. Multi stage sampling procedure was used in selecting 120 arable crop farmers. Primary data were collected with the aid of a well-structured interview schedule and subjected to frequency counts, percentage, mean, standard deviation, chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) analyses. The results revealed that the mean age of the arable crop farmers was 53.04 years +/- 13.48 years, majority (75.8%) were male and majority (85.8%) were married. Majority (83.3%) were at moderate level of farm credit accessibility. The major constraints to accessing credit in the study area were delay in approval/disbursement (X-2 =4.85) and lack of collateral ((X) over bar =4.58). Results of the hypothesis showed significant association between accessibility of farm credit and sex (chi(2)=14.219, p=0.001) and level of education, the results also showed positive and significant relationship between accessibility of farm credit and age (r=0.527; p= 0.000) and household size (r=0.426, p= 0.000) of the arable crop farmers. It was concluded that there was moderate level of credit accessibility by the arable crop farmers. Also, sex, level of education, types of arable crops grown, land acquisition pattern, age, household size, farming experience and farm size were the determinants of credit accessibility by the arable crop farmers. It was recommended that the arable crop farmers should increase their scale of farming in order to have better access to farm credit and that government should provide enough farm credit at low interest rate for the arable crop farmers in the study