Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.

1, 2021

DETERMINANTS OF RURAL POVERTY IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

BY
*¹Jatto, K.A, ²Adeoye, A.S., ¹Oke, O.S., Ogunbela, A.A., ²Ojo-Fakuade, F.F., ²Ogunwale,
3

O.G and ²Falana, A.R

¹Department of Forest Economics and Extension,
Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, Jericho Hill, Ibadan, Nigeria
²Federal College of Forestry, Jericho Hill, Ibadan, Nigeria
Forest Based Rural Resource Center, Ikija, Nigeria
3

*E-mail for correspondence: jattodayo@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
An increasing number of rural communities are experiencing persistently high poverty rates. The study
therefore examined the determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State. A three-staged random sampling
technique was used to select one hundred and fifty (150) respondents while data was collected using
structured questionnaires. The data generated from the survey were analyzed using Descriptive statistics,
Foster Greer and Thorbecke approach and Logistic regression model. The result of the descriptive
analysis shows that most of the rural households were headed by males (80%), majority (81.33%) were
married, and had a mean age of 53.60 years with majority (86.67%) of them not having access to credit
facilities. The average monthly income of the respondents in the study area stood at ₦37193.33 while the
mean per capita household expenditure was ₦17008.25 per month. The poverty status at household level
revealed that 56% of the rural households are poor while 44% are not poor. The determinants of
household poverty revealed that household size (p<0.01) is a positive and significant predictor of the
probability of being poor while access to credit (p<0.1) and per capita income (p<0.05) are negative and
significant predictors of the probability of being poor. Gender, marital status, educational status, and age
of household head are non-significant predictors of the probability of being poor. It was therefore
recommended that quality credit accessibility and participation in skills acquisition programmes through
diversification should be encouraged due to their capability of improving the household income of the
poor.
Keywords: Poverty, Income, Expenditure, Households, Kwara State
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/joafss.v19i1.2

INTRODUCTION
Poverty is a problem affecting every nation of the world (Chen and Ravallion, 2010). The
proportion of Nigerians living below the poverty line of one dollar per day has increased
dramatically during the last decade (Africa Development Fund [ADF], 2004). Poverty in Nigeria
is on the increase and its incidence and severity are more in the agricultural sector. It is a major
problem which is more prevalent in the rural areas as 75% of the poor people in the developing
countries are in the rural areas characterized by low productivity, small scale enterprise and
crude system of farming (International Fund for African Development [IFAD], 2001).
The reduction of poverty is the most difficult challenge facing any country in the developing
world where on average, the majority of the population is considered poor. In Nigeria, the
number of those in poverty has continued to increase (Lawal et al., 2011). Despite the various
efforts of government to reduce the incidence of poverty through different poverty alleviation

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

programmes and strategies and the quest to be one of the 20 largest economies by the year 2020,
Nigeria continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world (Adepoju, 2012).
The problem of poverty has been a long standing issue in Nigeria. This is indicated by the
low social status and poor living conditions of the inhabitants. The problem has been made worse
over the years by the development pattern which has favoured the urban modern sectors to the
detriment of the traditional rural sectors (World Bank, 1996). Poverty is especially higher in rural
areas where majority of the population are resident and derive their livelihoods from agriculture
(Adekoya, 2014; FAO, 2006). The World Bank poverty assessment on Nigeria has shown that
the nature of those in poverty can be distinguished by some characteristics such as education,
age, gender, employment status of the head of household, household size and the share of food in
total expenditure (Adekoya, 2014). Despite agriculture being the major occupation, most of the
rural households are poor (Adepoju and Obayelu, 2013). In view of the significance of poverty,
the study therefore attempted to analyze the determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State.

METHODOLOGY
Area of study
This study was conducted in Kwara State. Kwara State with a total of sixteen Local
Government Areas (LGAs) has a population of 2,365,353 and a total land size of 3,682,500
hectares (Wikipedia, 2021). It is located between latitudes 7 o 45' N and 9 o 30' N and longitude
o ' o '
2 30 E and6 25 E.
The annual rainfall ranges between 1,000mm and 1,500mm. Average temperature ranges
between 30o C and35o C . It also has an estimated figure of 203,833 farm families with the
majority living in rural areas. Kwara State is divided into four zones by the Kwara State
Agricultural Development Project (KWADP) in consonance with ecological characteristics,
cultural practices and project’s administrative convenience. These are: Zone A: Baruteen and
Kaima Local Government Areas; Zone B: Edu and Patigi Local Government Areas; Zone C:
Asa, Ilorin East, Ilorin South, Ilorin West and Moro Local Government Areas; and Zone D:
Ekiti, Ifelodun, Irepodun, Offa, Oyun, Isin and Oke-Ero Local Government Areas (KWADP,
1996).

Sampling procedures and sampling size

A three-staged random sampling technique was used for the study. First, three LGAs
were randomly selected from the 16 LGAs in the state because they are rural areas. This was
followed by random selection of five communities in each of the selected LGAs. Then,
structured questionnaires were randomly administered to ten (10) households, giving a total of
150 respondents.
Data collection
The population for this study comprised of all rural households in the State. The data
used for this research were collected in the year 2020 by means of questionnaire. Information
used for the study includes those on socio-economic and demographic characteristics, as well as,
those on expenditure made on food and non-food items by the households. The expenditures on
food include those on staples such as beans, garri, rice, yam, palm oil and so on and expenditure
on non-staple food items such as eggs, fish, meat, fruits, vegetables, and beverages amongst

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

others. The non-food items of expenditure include those on accommodation, clothing, education,
health, transportation and savings. The items of wealth owned by the households were also
examined. The considered wealth items include television sets, cell phones, automobiles,
generators, and refrigerators. The data generated from the survey were analyzed using
descriptive statistics, The Foster, Greer and Thorbecke poverty index and logistic regression
model.
Analytical techniques
Descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency distribution tables, and percentages were
used to describe the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents.
The Foster, Greer and Thorbecke – FGT (1984) poverty index was used to depict the extent of
poverty among the rural households in the study area. Households’ total monthly expenditure
was used to determine the households’ poverty status. The poverty line was constructed as two-
thirds of the mean monthly per-capita expenditure of all households. Households were then
classified into their poverty status based on the poverty line. According to Adekoya, (2014) the
model was given as:
q ∝
1
P= ∑ z−z yi
N i=1 ( ) ----------------------------------------------------- (1)

Where: P = Foster, Greer and Thorbecke index (0≤ P ≤ 1); N = Total number of households; z =
Poverty line; q = Number of poor who are below Z; yi = Expenditure of the ith household; ∝ =
Non-negative poverty aversion parameter which can take values between 0 and 2.
Construction of the Poverty Line
Poverty line has been defined as the minimum or the cut-off standard of expenditure on food or
per capita income below which an individual or household is described as poor (Anyanwu,
1997). According to (FOS, 1999) and (Canagarajah and Thomas, 2002), there is no official
poverty line in Nigeria and as such many earlier studies have used poverty lines which are
proportions of the average per capita expenditure. However, in this study per capita expenditure
which is considered more appropriate in past studies because it is consistent and does not change
over a period of time when compared to income was adopted. Therefore, the poverty line was
defined as the two-thirds (2/3) of the mean value of per capita consumption expenditure in the
study area. The rural households were categorized into those that were poor and those that were
not poor group using the two-third mean per capita expenditure (World Bank, 1996) as the
bench mark. Households whose mean consumption expenditure falls below the poverty line are
regarded as being poor while those with their expenditure above the benchmark are non-poor
(Adekoya, 2014).
PCE = TCE/HHS ----------------------------------------------------- (2)
MPCHE = THHE/TNR ------------------------------------------------ (3)
PL = 2/3 * MPCHE ----------------------------------------------------- (4)
Where: PCE = Per Capita Expenditure; TCE = Total Consumption Expenditure; HHS =
Household Size; MPCHE = Mean Per Capita Households Expenditure; TNR = Total Number of
Respondent; THHE = Total Households Expenditure; PL = Poverty Line

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

Logistic regression model was used to analyze the determinants of poverty status of the rural
households. As such, logistic regression was most appropriate for this study due to its unique
ability to account for both categorical and dichotomous dependent variables. According to
Adepoju and Obayelu, (2013) the model was specified as:
Y =B0 + B1 X 1 +B 2 X 2+ B3 X 3 + B4 X 4 + B5 X 5 + B6 X 6 + B7 X 7 +U
Where:
Y = Poverty status of households (1 = Poor, 0 = Non-poor)
The dependent variable was a dichotomous variable depicting the respondents’ poverty status
and took the value of 1 if the respondent was poor and 0 if not. The independent variables were
the socio-economic factors. The hypothesized independent variables were: X 1 = Gender of
household head (1 = Male, 0 = Female); X 2 = Marital status (1 = Married, 0 = If otherwise); X 3 =
Educational level of the household head (Years); X 4 = Age of the respondents (Years); X 5 = Per
capita income (Naira); X 6 = Household size (Headcount); X 7 = Access to credit (1 = Yes, 0 =
No); U = Error term

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Socio-economic characteristics of respondents
The results on the socio-economic characteristics of respondents are summarized in Table
1. According to the table, 80% of the rural households were headed by males while 20% were
females. This indicates that there are more male household head than female in the study area.
The majority (81.33%) of the respondents were married. This implies that a greater percentage of
the respondents had family indicating stability. According to Njoku and Offor (2016), stability
creates conducive environment for development of personal integrity and for entrepreneurship
which is important for efficient use of resources. The respondents had a mean age of 53.60 years
with majority of the respondents (49.33%) being within the age range of 41-60 years. This
implies that most of the respondents are middle aged and they fall within the active age bracket
of economically active population category which is between 25-59 years according to
Babatunde et al., (2015).
The majority (80%) of the respondents had formal education and 20% of the sampled
respondents had no formal education. This implies that the respondents were very literate and
were capable of adopting opportunities that could boost their productivity. The study also shows
that the majority (48.67%) of the respondents had household size of 7-12 persons. A mean
household size of about 7 persons was obtained. This is a relatively large household size which is
desirable in terms of supplying family labour instead of hired labour. However, it could become
a burden in terms of upkeep of the household. The result reveals that majority (86.67%) of the
respondent have did not receive any credit or have access to facilities at a time or the other. This
implies that they have no other means to access credit, or purchase inputs in bulk which can
reduce the total cost of operation (Babatunde et al., 2015). With respect to the monthly income
distribution of the respondents, majority (45.33%) of the respondents earn between ₦30001-
₦50000 monthly while few of them (5.33%) earn above ₦70,000 per month. The average
monthly income of the respondents in the study area stood at ₦37,193.33.

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

Table 1: Socio-economic characteristics of respondents

Variables Label Frequency Percent Mean
(n=150) (%=100)
Gender Female 30 20.00
Male 120 80.00

Single 7 4.67
Married 122 81.33
Marital status
Separated/Divorced 4 2.67
Widowed 17 11.33

21-40 30 20.00
Age of
41-60 74 49.33 53.60
household
61-80 36 24.00
head
81+ 10 6.67

No Formal 30 20.00
Education of
Primary 39 26.00
household
Secondary 58 38.67
head
Tertiary 23 15.33

1-6 69 46.00
Household size 7-12 73 48.67 7.14
13+ 8 5.33

Access to Did not receive 130 86.67

credit Received credit 20 13.33

11000-30000 62 41.33
Total
30001-50000 68 45.33 37193.33
household
50001-70000 12 8.00
income
70000+ 8 5.33
Field survey, 2020

Determination of poverty line

Expenditure approach was used to determine the household poverty line. Based on this,
the poverty line constructed as two-thirds of the mean per capita expenditure of all the rural
households was ₦11,338.83 as presented in Table 2. This implies that households whose per
capita expenditure fall below ₦11,338.83 were classified as poor while households whose per
capita expenditure equaled or was above the poverty line were classified as not poor. Based on
the poverty line, households were classified into their poverty status as either not poor or poor as
presented in Table 3. The table shows that 56% of rural households in Kwara State, Nigeria are
poor while 44% are non-poor.

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

Table 2: Determination of poverty line

Items Amount (₦/month)
Household food expenditure 3312500
Household non-food expenditure 6993000
Total household expenditure 10305500
Per capita household expenditure (PCHE) 1530743
Mean per capita household expenditure (MPCHE) 17008.25
2/3 MPCHE (Poverty line) 11338.83
Source: Field survey, 2020
Table 3: Poverty status of households
Poverty status Frequency (n=150) Percent (%=100)
Not poor 66 44.00
Poor 84 56.00
Source: Field survey, 2020
Determinants of rural poverty
The result of the logistic regression analysis of the determinants of rural poverty in
Kwara State is presented in Table 4. The chi-square value of 38.90 which was significant at 1%
level shows that the model has a good fit for the data. The result reveals that household size
(p<0.01) is a positive and significant predictor of the probability of being poor while access to
credit (p<0.1) and per capita income (p<0.05) are negative and significant predictors of the
probability of being poor. Gender, married, educational status, and age of household head are
non-significant predictors of the probability of being poor.
The odds ratio for household size was 1.643, meaning that the odds of a farmer being
poor (Y=1) increased by a factor of 1.643 with every unit increase on household size. Since we
are multiplying odds by 1.643 per unit increase on the predictor, it implies that our odds are
increasing with each increase on the predictor.
The odds ratio for household that was identified as those that received credit was 0.334,
meaning that the odds of a farmer being poor (Y=1) increased by a factor of 0.334 with every
unit increase on those that received credit relative to those that did not receive credit . Since we
are multiplying odds by 0.334 per unit increase on the predictor, it implies that our odds are
decreasing with each increase on the predictor. Therefore, households identified as receiving
credit were less likely to be poor than those that did not received credit.
The odds ratio for per capita income of households was 1.000, meaning that the odds of a
farmer being poor (Y=1) change by a factor of 1.000 with every unit increase on per capita
income. Since we are multiplying odds by 1.000 per unit increase on the predictor, it implies that
there is no change in odds per unit increase on the predictor. It means that the probability of a
case falling into the target group does not change depending on level of the predictor variable.

Table 4: Logistic regression estimates of the determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State.

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 Journal of Agriculture, Forestry and the Social Sciences (JOAFSS); Vol.19, No.1, 2021

Variables Coef. Std. Err.Odds Std. Err Z P

ratio
Gender 0.125 0.460 1.133 0.521 0.27 0.786
Married -0.0265 0.480 0.974 0.468 -0.06 0.956
Educational status 0.596 0.392 1.815 0.711 1.52 0.128
Age of household head 0.0104 0.0139 1.010 0.0140 0.75 0.454
Per capita income -0.000176** 8.88e-05 1.000** 8.88e-05 -1.98 0.048
Household size 0.497*** 0.147 1.643***0.241 3.38 0.001
Access to credit -1.097* 0.581 0.334* 0.194 -1.89 0.059
Constant -3.002* 1.587 0.0497* 0.0788 -1.89 0.059
LR chi2(7) 38.90
Prob > chi2 0.0000
Log likelihood -83.440859
Pseudo R2 0.1890
Observations 150
Note: The base category for education is at most primary, female for gender, not married for
marital status, and no access for credit. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The study focused on the determinants of rural poverty in Kwara State. The descriptive
analysis shows that most of the rural households were headed by males (80%), majority
(81.33%) were married, and had a mean age of 53.60 years with majority (86.67%) of them not
having access to credit facilities. The average monthly income of the respondents in the study
area stood at ₦37193.33 while the mean per capita household expenditure was ₦17008.25 per
month.
The poverty status at household level revealed that 56% of the rural households are poor
while 44% are not poor. The determinants of household poverty using logistic regression
analysis revealed that household size (p<0.01) is a positive and significant predictor of the
probability of being poor while access to credit (p<0.1) and per capita income (p<0.05) are
negative and significant predictors of the probability of being poor. Gender, married, educational
status, and age of household head are non-significant predictors of the probability of being poor.
Gender, marital status, educational status, and age of household head are non-significant
predictors of the probability of being poor. The study therefore recommended that quality credit
accessibility and participation in skills acquisition programmes through diversification should be
encouraged due to their capability of improving the household income of the poor.

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