Assessment of Women Farmers' savings capacity in Egbeda Local Government area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The assessment of women farmers' savings capacity in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria was studied. Two stages random sampling technique was employed in the selection of 120 respondents. Well structured questionnaires were used to collect primary data used for the study. Data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results of the study showed the average age of women farmers in the study area to be 46 years with standard deviation of 9.493. 69.2% of them were married and have had an average of about 17.5 years of farming experience with standard deviation of 5.351. They have ? 32,416.7 as average annual farm income and ? 36,018.5 as average off-farm income. Similarly, cash was identified as the major pattern women farmers save money with financial self-help as the major (65%) form of cash savings while livestock keeping was the major (84%) form of non-cash savings in the study area. The result equally revealed that level of income was the major (83.3%) determinant of the respondents' savings capacity. The study through factor analysis identified 3 major constraints affecting their savings capacity as 1) Institutional problems 2) Farmer-related problems and 3) Bank-related problems. The result of multiple regression analysis showed Adjusted R2 of 76.9% and equally revealed that socioeconomic characteristics of women farmers had significant effect on their savings capacity at 5% significance level and with p-value (0.011) < 0.05. Bank- related problem was identified as one of the women farmers' constraints and as such, it is recommended that Policy makers should establish and strengthen links between formal and informal financial institutions so as to ease the problem of bureaucracy in their activities. That way, the women are encouraged to save money in the institutions which is a safer way of keeping money.