Abstract

This study determined an optimum farm credit for small scale farmers in Benue State. A set of structured questionnaires were administered on 180 respondents randomly selected from eighteen communities in the state. Linear programming was used to obtain an optimum farm credit for farmers engaged in four farm enterprises in the study area, namely, yam and cassava mix, maize and sorghum mix, yam and sorghum mix and cassava and maize mix. The results showed that N58,498.80 was obtained as the optimum farm credit. This optimum solution further showed that farmers can only cultivate a total of 1.7 hectares of land from which a total of N499,304 can be generated as net revenue for the farm. The optimum farm credit determined for this model is subject to influence by socio-economic variable, such as farm size, cash, household size and educational status of farmers. It was then recommended among other things that financial institutions should increase their credit volume to farmers and that government should also remove all bottlenecks to land acquisition for farming.

Key words: Linear programming, farm credit, small scale farmers.