ANALYSIS OF GINGER FARMERS POVERTY STATUS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

The study assessed the poverty status among ginger rural farming households in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Specifically the study determined the poverty status of the farmers and the effects of gender access to resources on poverty status of farmers. Random sampling was used to select 250 farming households. Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) Model was used to determine the poverty status of farmers while the logit regression was used to examine the effect of accessibility to resources on the poverty status of ginger farmers in the study area. The incidence of poverty among the sampled households was found to be high and the result of the study also revealed there were more poor households among the female farmers compared to the male farmers. The result of the study showed that increase access to resources such as land, seed and agrochemical (among male farming households) while labour, seed and fertilizer (among female farming households) reduces poverty (p<0.01). The study therefore recommends the need for policy makers and managers of poverty alleviation programmes to identify the poor at community levels so as to direct poverty alleviation project towards them. There is need for investment in agriculture so as to improve farmers’ welfare, especially the women farmers.