An Analysis of the Factors Infl uencing Access to Credit by Poultry Farmers in Abuja, Nigeria

Access to credit remains an important tool in the development of poultry industry in Nigeria. Yet, the majority of poultry farmers in the country have no access to credit from formal sources. Th is paper therefore investigates the factors infl uencing access to credit by poultry farmers in Abuja. A two-stage sampling technique was used to elicit information from 107 poultry farmers in Abuja metropolis. Descriptive statistics and Heckman two-step model were employed to analyze the data. Th e results of the descriptive analysis show that commercial layer production enterprise was the most popular among the poultry farmers in Abuja, while the least was quail production. Only about 30% of the respondents had access to credit from formal sources and the majority of them got their loan from cooperative societies. Results from Heckman two-step model show that diff erent sets of factors aff ect the probability of access and amount of credit. Th e factors that were found to be important in explaining access to credit include extension visits, distance to formal credit sources, hours of entrepreneurial training and commercial broiler production enterprise. Years of schooling, household size and broiler parent stock enterprise were the important factors infl uencing the amount of credit received. To enhance access to credit by poultry farmers in the study area, policies that will encourage the expansion of formal fi nancial services to the rural areas and human capacity development should be strengthened