Abstract

The study was aimed at determining the socio-economic determinants of informal savings amongst vegetable farmers in the North West Region of Cameroon. Savings and savings mobilization in any economy is undertaken by formal, semi formal and informal institutions. Possibly as a result of this poor bank distribution, one is able to clearly see how the region is highly dominated by the informal sector. Data for the study were obtained from 180 farmers with the aid of well structured questionnaires through a multistage sampling technique. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. Results obtained showed that vegetable farmers were on the average 36 years with average household size of 7. Average farm size of 0.5 ha cultivated indicates small nature of holdings. Results from the multiple regression analysis showed that interest paid, farm size, income, education and distance were positively significant while gender, age and household size were also significant and negative .This implies that all factors play a significant role in determining informal savings amongst vegetable farmers. It was recommended that farmers should be encouraged and enlightened on the need of savings as well as encouraged to form savings cooperatives.

Key words: Determinants, informal, savings, vegetable, farmers, North West Region.