Assessment of Poverty Alleviation Strategies Used By Rural Farming Households in Ondo State, Nigeria

Poverty has plagued many rural farming household in Nigeria. Despite several approaches adopted by Government to ameliorate poverty among its citizenry, the number of people living in impoverished condition has continued to rise. This study therefore aimed at assessing the poverty alleviation strategies used among farming household in Ondo State, Nigeria. A validated interview schedule and questionnaire were used to elicit information from 140 respondents. Data collected were subjected to both descriptive and inferential analyses. Findings of the study revealed that majority of the respondents were male (94.3%), married (76.5%) with most of them were educated with mean age of 50 years. Finding revealed that 72.4% of the respondents had extension contact. It was also revealed that unemployment is king problem facing the respondents in the study area. The findings revealed that embarking on petty business was ranked highest among all coping strategies used by the respondents. The result showed that marital status, farming experience and educational level of the respondents had positive and significant relationship at p< 0.05 with the poverty coping strategies adopted among the rural farming household. The study concluded that financial mismanagement was the major causes of poverty while they engaged in petty business as strategy to ameliorate the poverty among them. It is therefore recommended that the extension agents should be more proactive to encourage the rural farming household to intensify more effort in farming rather than petty businesses as this is most reliable and sustainable business to combat poverty.