Poverty Status of Farm Households in Selected Local Governent Areas of Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Poverty incidence in Nigeria is higher among the rural-folks, that is, households that rely mainly on fundamentally on agricultural income. This study investigated poverty status of farm households in selected Local Government areas of Niger State, Nigeria. The study utilized data obtained from administering questionnaire to 287 farming households. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Foster-Greer and Thorbecke poverty index (FGT). The study revealed that mean age, household size, and farm size of the respondents were 42, 7, and 2.82 respectively. A total of 46.4% of the respondents had no formal education and only 12.9% had attained formal education up to the tertiary level. Majority, i.e 94.8% had no access to credit. Results of the Foster-Greer and Thorbecke poverty index analysis revealed that 25.1% of the respondents were poor with 0.56 and 0.37 as their poverty depth and severity respectively. The study recommend that the minimum cost of eliminating poverty using targeted transfers with poverty gap index should be one of the yard stick use for conditional money transfer by the Millennium Development Goals office which will serve as savings to the poverty alleviation budget.