Analysis of poverty level among timber millers in Osogbo Agricultural Zone of Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Poverty continues to mull over from one generation to another and currently worsen among the rural dwellers than  expected. Although, past government has adopted different programme to tackle poverty, but its intensity keeps  increasing day-by-day. This study was therefore conducted to analyzed poverty status among timber millers (sawnwood producers) in Osogbo Agricultural Zone of Osun State. A multistage sampling procedure was used to select 90  respondents. Primary data (on socioeconomic characteristics, the annual income and expenditure faced by timber  millers, source of credits and raw timbers as well as the mode/condition of living of the respondents) were collected  with the aid of structured questionnaire supplemented with oral interview. Data were analyzed using descriptive  statistics, Logistic regression model and Foster Greer Thorbecke (FGT) poverty index. Results reveal hat 62.2% of  the respondents were male household heads with the mean age of 48years, 88.9% of the respondents were married  and had a household size of 5 persons on average. Most of the timber millers in the area were largely literate, 72.2%  were primarily into sawn-wood or timber milling enterprise and they depend mostly on cooperative loans for  finance. The poverty aversion parameter values for poverty incidence (P0), poverty depth (P1) and poverty severity
(P2) were 44.5%, 28.3% and 21.6%, respectively. This indicates that the poverty incidence was about 45%, the depth  of poverty was 28.3% while the poverty severity was 21.6% among the respondents in the area. The study shows  that meal skipping (35.4%), having low cost meal (24.3%), reducing meal size (15.4%), fasting (13.2%), borrowing  from neighbours (8.1%), hunting and harvesting of fresh fruits from bush (3.7%) were the main coping strategies  employed by the respondents in the study area to lessen the impact of poverty syndrome. The marginal effect from  Logit estimate reveals that age of the respondents (P= 0.046), access to credit (P=0.011) and revenue generated from  timber milling business (P=0.000) significantly determined poverty level among the respondents in the study area.  However, significant numbers of timber millers (45%) are poor and if credit facilities should be made available and  accessible to them and they were able to utilise them credibly, it will give an avenue to boost the production of  timber and therefore reduce poverty among the timber producers in the study area.