Determinants of Credit Constraint among Smallholder Farmers’ Co-Operators in Oyo State, Nigeria

Credit constraint (CC) has been identified as one of the factors that diminish the production efficiency of farmers. Although Multipurpose Cooperative Societies (MCS) have been identified as an avenue to reduce (CC) among farmers, (CC) persists. Thus, the effectiveness of (MCS) in credit delivery and the determinant of (CC) of co-operators were examined. A four-stage sampling procedure was used where Oyo State was purposively selected based on high numbers of registered Agricultural Cooperative Societies. One block was selected from each zone of the four Agricultural Development Project zones. Two cells were randomly selected from each block. Multi-purpose cooperative societies from each of the cells were randomly selected. Co-operators were randomly selected proportionate to size and in all, 200 respondents were randomly selected. Co-operators access credit, inputs, tractors, market information and processed their produce by (MCS). Female co-operators were more credit constraint than their male counterparts. Education, default history farming experience, monthly contributions and dependency ratio were the determinants of credit constraint. Default history has the highest impact in determining credit constraint of co-operators, therefore conscious effort is needed by co-operators to avoid it occurrence. Credits should be made available to farmers through cooperative societies to enhance their efficiency.