ABSTRACT
The study investigated the Effects of Poverty on the Risk Attitudes of Farmers in Benue State, Nigeria. Nigeria has remained one of the poorest countries in the world and Benue State in particular was ranked the eight poorest of the thirty-six states of the Federation. The dominance of the oil sector and the consequent neglect of agricultural sector is one of the major precursors of poverty in Nigeria. Small-scale farmers who operate in an environment characterized by risk and uncertainty produce the bulk of Nigeria’s food andfibre. Presently, the Nigerian agriculture is characterized by low productivity, low level of technological adoption, and use of inefficient production techniques. The present poor state of the Nigerian agriculture is related to farmers1 attitudes towards risks in the production and socioeconomic environment.
Based on the above problems the specific objectives of the study were to: determine the extent of poverty among farmers in Benue State; identify the various risk situations faced and risk aversion strategies employed by farmers with differing poverty levels; assess the risk attitudes of farmers; and determine the effect of poverty and socioeconomic variables on risk attitudes of the farmers.
A multistage random sampling technique was used for selecting the respondents. One hundred and twenty (120) farm households were used for the study. The data were collected during the 200312004 farming season. The data were analyzed using the Foster Greer Thorbercke poverty measures, descriptive statistics, Likert scale, safety-first model and multiple regression analysis.
.Results of the study showed that the households on the average contained about 7.6 persons, with annual per capita income of 4432,491 and had a total land holding of 4.8 hectares. The household head was about 44 years and had spent about 5.5 years in school. Using the international poverty line of US$1 per day per person, the result revealed that 78.3% of the respondents were poor and that the depth of poverty, that is the mean distance of the income of the poor from the poverty line was 42.5% which is approximately 8119,800 below the poverty line (0546,519 per annum).