ABSTRACT

The study analyzed gender access and ownership of farm land for cassava production in Abia state. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, determine the level of access to cassava farmland, identify the land ownership structure for cassava production, determine the cultural factors influencing access to cassava farmland and to determine the socio-cultural factor influencing access to cassava farmland; A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 109 males and 109 female giving a sample size of 218 respondents. Data for the study were collected with pre- tested questionnaire and scheduled interview. Data generated were analyzed using frequency counts, mean, percentages, while inferential statistics such as probit regression analysis and z-test were used in analyzing the data. The result shows that the mean age of the male and the female were 52.7 and 46.2 years old respectively .it was also observed that 94.5% ofthe male respondents and 97.2% of the female respondents had one form of formal education or the farming experiences of the male and female were 16.54 years and 13.26 years respectively. The mean farm sizes ofthe respondents were 2.91 hectares and 2.45 hectares for the male and female respectively. This indicates that the respondents (both male and female) were smallholder farmers. In the test of hypotheses, the social economics characteristics of the female respondents such as marital status, education, farm size, income and access to credit the male age, education, household size, farm size, income, and access to credit were also found to be highly significant with land ownership system at 1 % (***) significant level. Also the result of the probit regression analysis showed that there is xi The study analyzed gender access and ownership of farm land for cassava production in Abia state. The specific objectives were to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the other. The mean household size of the male and the female headed were 7.78 and 7.08.