RISK MANAGEMENT AND MITIGATION AMONG FARMERS IN ILORIN METROPOLIS

1Oloriegbe Kale Saliu, 2Adeniji Ronke Oluwaseyi, 3Adebayo Abdullateef Olatunji, 4Adebayo Biliamin Yusuf

Abstract

This study was undertaken to identify and analyze the risks faced by farmers in Ilorin metropolis and the types of agricultural insurance taken against these risks.The main objective of this study is to understand the method and process farmers take to reduce risk in Ilorin metropolis Therefore, seven research questions and four null hypotheses were raised for study. Based on these, an interview schedule was designed to gather relevant data and information. The respondents were 58 accidentally selected farmers with projects in poultry, crop growing, fish farming market - gardening and mixture of two of the above. The responses of the farmers were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The seven research questions were answered using frequencies, percentages and rankings. The four null hypotheses were tested with t-test and chi-square. from the analysis, it was found that: (i) many of the farmers (58%) were highly educated; and werein the middle age bracket of 25-40 years (66%); (ii) the researcher discovered that some (33%) of the farmers combined livestock and crop farming; therefore, there were five categories of farming: crop, poultry, fish, market gardening and mixed; (iii) the major agricultural risks were: diseases, floods, deaths of animal, theft, embezzlement; (price fluctuations and failure of investment). the five major reasons why farmers did not take insurance included: taking agricultural insurance being complicated, long-drawn out process and the small-scale nature of project making premium payments difficult for farmers. the four major benefits of agricultural insurance for the farmers in Ilorin metropolis included: security of investment and cushioning the shock of losses. Crop farmers were significantly more affected by economic risks. Livestock farmers took significantly more agricultural insurance than crop farmers. The study therefore recommends that it is important that farmers enroll in insurance program that can help mitigate their losses in case of uncertainties.