Binary Logistic Regression Modeling of Impact of agriculture credit facilities and farmers' socio-economic characteristics on small scale farming in Niger state

Abstract

Inadequate support for farmers from government-owned financial institutions in terms of agricultural credit facilities has been identified as one of the major problems affecting farming operation, particularly that of the small scale farmers, in Nigeria. This work investigates and models the impact of agricultural credit facilities as well as that of socio-economic characteristics of farmers on small scale farming in Niger state using Chanchaga and Bosso Local Government areas of the state as a case study. The research design employed the use of data from Bank of Agriculture, Minna Branch office in order to achieve an accurate representation of the population under study. Binary Logistic Regression modeling approach was used on the collected data so as to get an idea of a prospective customer defaulting on payment. It was observed that the amount of loan granted to the farmer, the farmer’s age and gender contributed significantly to the performance of the loan at 0.05 level of significance. Credit facilities therefore play crucial role in the operation of small scale farming.