Determinants of Credit Accessibilty by Farmers in Owerri Agricultural Zone, Imo State, Nigeria

This study investigated the factors affecting credit accessibility in Owerri agricultural zone of Imo state. Multi-stage sampling technique was used for sample selection. Data were collected with the use of structured and validated questionnaire from 7 purposively selected institutionalized credit sources and 60 randomly selected credit beneficiaries, comprising 20 farmers from each of the 3 purposively selected LGAs in the study area. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR). The result showed that (78%) of the farmers were in their active working age (40years) and majority (92%) of them were married; with a mean family size of 8 persons. This study has identified interest rate, lack of collateral and guarantor as major factors that negatively affected credit accessibility in the study area. The study recommended that the farmers should take advantage of the various credit facilitates offered by institutionalized sources in order to expand their production. The institutionalized credit sources should also put in place a comprehensive credit risk management process to identify, measure, monitor/control credit risk and where appropriate, hold capital against these risks in order to reduce risk of delinquencies and defaults.