ABSTRACT

The broad objective of this study was to examine the effects of microcredit access, utilization and repayment on catfish production enterprises in Benue State, Nigeria.  Multistage sampling technique was used in selecting respondents for the study. Thus, a total sample size of 300 catfish production enterprises was selected for this study. The study used descriptive statistics to examine and analyze objectives one, two, three and eight, respectively. Objectives four to seven utilized inferential statistics. The statistical techniques adopted were: frequency distributions, means and percentages to examine variables, multiple regression, logit regression, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), stochastic frontier, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and likert scale. The study disclosed that, of the total sum of ₦ 39,189,185 microcredit accessed by catfish production enterprises; a huge sum of ₦ 28,582,422 was utilized in catfish production business. However, the utilization index for accessed microcredit was 0.73; this translates into 73% of utilized microcredit in the study area. In the case of microcredit repayment, a vast sum of ₦ 37,054,472 was repaid by catfish production enterprises. This implies that 94% of the total sum of ₦ 39,189,185 microcredit accessed by catfish production enterprises was repaid. SEM was used to test the relationship among the constructs; for the whole model, the statistical result shows that Chi-square value of 222, 091.25 was significant at 1%. Standard estimation of the full model of the three paths indicates significance for both Content Specific Factors and Social Factors respectively. Economic Factors however, was not significant even at 5% but was at 10% which is a bit far off for this study. The study concludes that, the coefficients agreed with the a priori expectation, which states that, a unit increase in microcredit access, utilization and repayment leads to a corresponding increase in catfish output in the study area. The Multiple coefficient of determination (R²) value is 0.960, which indicated that there is a very strong and significant relationship between the indicators. The results indicate that the calculated value of F-test at 1% level showed significant value of 10.45. Based on the findings of this study, catfish production enterprises should engage the office of the Director of Fisheries under the Benue State Ministry of Agriculture to enquire about skills in writing a feasibility study for their enterprises in order to access more microcredit from Bank of Industry (BOI) and Bank of Agriculture (BOA). The credit made available by sources of microcredit such as BOI, BOA, cooperatives, etc, to catfish production enterprise need to be increased so that the enterprise could make greater impact on fish production and economic growth of the Nation. Government should fund more microcredit institutions so that their interest rate would be reduced for catfish production enterprises to obtain credit with ease.