ABSTRACT

This study examined the income pattern and poverty alleviation strategies of rural women farmers in Abia State, Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; describe the sociO_ec0noIc characteristics of the rural women farmers; determine the poverty line, poverty incidence and poverty gap of the rural women farmers; examine the income patterns of the rural women farmers; identify the various coping strategies for poverty alleviation among rural women farmers; analyze the determinants of rural women farmers' income and; identify the problems affecting the income of rural women litrmcrs in the study area. A multi-stage random sampling technique \VUS used to select the local government areas, communities and respondents in the three (Aba, Ohafia and Umuahia) agricultural zones of the State. The sample size was 120 rural women farmers. Instrument of data collection was a set of structured and pre-tested questionnaire administered on rural women farmers. The result indicated that incidence of poverty or head count ratio was 0.55 while the poverty gap otherwise known as income short fall was 0.2667 for the rural women farmers. The various income activities (income pattern) of the rural women farmers show that the women farmers participating in crop production and self-employed activities receive the largest total farm N4l 157.26) and total off farm N5487.39) monthly income respectively per adult equivalent. The study revealed that the rural women farmers resorted mainly to farming and self employed jobs as a coping strategy for poverty alleviation of their family needs. The result of the multiple regression analysis with double-log functional form as the lead equation shows that the significant variables (age, marital status, educational level, occupation and farm size) had positive influence (cx't farm size and educational iecei) on the rural women harmers' income at varied risk levels, with a coefficient of multiple determination (R2) of 0.9131 and F-ratio 51.61 which was significant at 1.0% probability level. Inadequate storage facilities were identified (66.67%) as the major problem affecting the income of rural women farmers, It was however, recommended that any rural development policy aimed at poverty alleviation in Nigeria should concentrate on farming which is the main occupation of the poor rural women, who lack access to credit, farm input and implements, and are unable to save or own production infrastructure