Abstract:
Poverty is a global menace that threatens not only the standard of living of the food crops farmers, but all the people across various countries of the world. The aim of this study is to assess the effect of risk attitude on rural household poverty of food crops farmers in Surulere Local Government Area of Ogbomoso, Oyo State. Specifically the study examined the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, investigates the poverty status of farmers in the study area, analyzed the risk attitude of the respondents and examined the relationship between the risk attitude of farmers and their poverty status. A total of 160 crop farmers were selected using multistage sampling procedure. The data for this study was collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire and interview schedule. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for the farmers socio-economic characteristics and poverty categorization, Moscardi and de Janvry Safety First Model, and probit regression model were used to assess the risk attitude of the respondents and factors affecting their poverty level. Based on the safety first model individuals were categorized according to their risk attitude- risk lover, risk neutral, and risk averse. The result showed that 80% of farm households in the area were poor based on the 2/3 of mean per capital expenditure which was estimated to be N46, 720.63 and its two-third is N31, 147.09. The result indicated that all farmers in the study area are risk averse. Result of probit regression also showed that household size, labour and cost of variable inputs were significant determinants of poverty. The study recommends that Government should make provisions for productions input so as to reduce economic risk faced by farmers and also the farmers should employ more variable inputs in production other than labour inputs, to reduce their level of poverty. |
