ANALYSIS OF POVERTY STATUS AMONG SMALLHOLDER RICE FARMERS IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

The study examined the poverty status among smallholder rice farmers in Kano State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 210 smallholder rice farmers from a population of 914 smallholder rice farmers using a well-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Descriptive statistics, a Multi-dimensional Poverty Index, and a Logit regression model. The results revealed that the households which ranged between 5.55 - 19 were not multidimensional poor represented 18.57%. Households that ranged between 20 - 33.3 were near multidimensional poor but not exactly multi-dimensional poor representing 46.19%, and households that ranged between 33.4 - 50 were multi-dimensional poor representing 27.62%, while households that ranged between 50-72.15 were in multidimensional poor, representing 7.61 %. The factors influencing the multidimensional poverty status of smallholder rice farmers in Kano State were household size (p<0.1), farm size (p<0.1), and cooperative membership (p<0.1). It was concluded that the majority of the smallholder rice farmers in the study area were multi-dimensionally poor. The study recommended that the fewer rice farmers identified as non-poor should intensify their rice production and other income-generating activities, to be above the poverty line to avoid falling into poverty easily either by the occurrence of natural disaster or any form of shock in the enterprise