Utilisation of Fadama III Additional Financing Technologies Among Rice Farmers in Niger State Nigeria

The study assessed the utilisation of Fadama III AF technologies and the factors influencing utilisation of Fadama III AF among rice farmers. Primary data were used for this study and these were collected with the aid of structured interview schedule. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 160 respondents randomly. Descriptive and inferential statistics such as multiple regression (OLS) were used to analysed the data. The age of the farmers revealed that 33% were between 40 – 49 years with mean age of 41 years. The majority (82%) were males, while 34% had secondary education. A total of 30% of the farmers had between 6 – 10 members of household. The result showed 21% had between 16 – 25 years of farming experience. All the farmers were active participants of Fadama III-AF programme and had contact with Fadama facilitators during the 2017/2018 cropping year. The study also revealed that 89% had access to credit and the average income from rice farming was ₦328,081.50. About 75% of the farmers had 3 – 4 information sources relating to the programme. The result implies that majority of the respondents had utilised Fadama III-AF technologies available in the study area. The regression analysis (OLS) shows that sex, education, farming experience, information source, contact with Fadama facilitators were significant at 1% or 0.01, farm size, social organisation and age significant at 5% or 0.05 and access to credit indicated positive and significant at 10% or 0.1 with utilisation of Fadama III AF rice technologies. It can be concluded that there was high rate of utilisation of Fadama III-AF technologies among rice farmers in the study area. The study recommended that farmers should be given more assistance to obtain credit facilities through financial institutions.