Factors Influencing Gender Accessibility to Productive Resources for Rice Production in Niger State, Nigeria

Aims: The aim was to analyze the factors influencing gender accessibility to productive resources for rice production in Niger State, Nigeria.

Study Design: Primary data were collected from 125 rice farmers with the aid of structured questionnaire.

Place and Duration of Study: This study was conducted in Lavun, Katcha and Gbako Local Government Areas of Niger State during 2015 cropping season.

Methodology: A multistage comprising purposive and random sampling techniques were used for data collection in this study. Descriptive statistics and logit regression was used in analyzing the data.

Results: The factors influencing gender accessibility to land resources were age, household size and cooperative membership at P<0.01 and P<0.10 level. Seed resource were age, education and access to credit at P<0.05 and P<0.01 level while education, extension contact and household size were not statistically significant. The factors influencing gender accessibility to labour resource were age, household size, extension contact and access to credit at P<0.05 and P<0.01 level.

Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it suffice to note that gender accessibility to productive resources is important in attaining food security and realizing the poverty reduction strategies of African countries. Farmers in the study area have limited access to major productive resources, but the females were more constrained. Providing resources in an efficient and equitable manner appears to have potential for greatly improving the scope for future poverty reduction in Nigeria. Given the necessary resources and the same enabling environment as their male counterpart in farming activities, women farmers are equally efficient in the utilization of these resources to achieve higher productivity and also there is need for an aggressive approach to ensure that gender participation in agriculture is at an increasing rate.