Influence of Poverty Gap and Severity Index on Production among Cassava based Farmers in Southern Nigeria

Background: Poverty has been a prevailing challenge among individuals and farmers most especially in the Nigerian economy. The study analyzed poverty status of cassava farmers in Agrarian cassava region in Cross River State, Nigeria. Methods: A multistage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 120 respondents using structured questionnaire between 2019 and 2022. Data obtained were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Result: Results showed that the poverty line estimated across all gender was N 17,770.80 and 64.15% of the male farmers were non-poor while 35.85% of them were poor. Male recorded the highest poverty head count ratio (P0) of 0.358. The poverty gap (P1) and severity of poverty (P2) among male farmers were 9.8 and 4.8 per cent, respectively. Similarly, poverty head count (P0), poverty gap (P1) and severity of poverty (P2) for female farmers was 32.8%, 9.7% and 4% respectively. Drudgery/ inadequate access to modern equipment (2.74), high cost of labour (2.64), high perishability of cassava (2.60), high cost of transportation (2.55), fluctuation in prices (2.43) and lack of improved variety (2.38) were the serious constraint faced by cassava farmers during their production in the study area. Policies should be directed towards enhancing farmer income and reducing income inequality through access to credit facility for cassava based farmers.