Pages: (144-168 )
Abstract
The Nigerian agricultural sector was a resilient sustainer of the economy and the Nigerian people in terms of food supply, employment and national income generation. This was possible as a result of focused regional based policy and commodity comparative and absolute advantage. However, the sector has struggled to perform the above stated functions since the 1980s due to policy neglect, economic distraction and economic indiscretion of successive Nigerian government. The study adopted survey research design. The population of the study was 400 cocoa farmers from Ondo State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used to select respondents. Information and data were elicited from these respondents using wellstructured questionnaires. The data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential (Linear Regression) statistics for the quantitative analysis to ascertain the effect and relationship of the variables. The findings disclosed that Cooperative society credit had a positive and significant effect on cocoa production in the study area (β = 0.219, t = 2 17.517, p<0.05, R of 0.537). The study concluded that availability of agricultural credit greatly affects cocoa production in Ondo State, Nigeria. We therefore recommended that the number as well as the value of credit guaranteed to cocoa farmers by finance agencies should be significantly increased so as to enable the farmers expand their production and thereby, reposition the cocoa industry to assume a critical role as a major non-oil foreign exchange earner in the Agricultural transformation plan of Nigeria.
Keywords: Cooperative society, Agricultural credit, Ondo State, Cocoa production, Farm productivity,