Effect of Flood on Poverty Status: Evidence from Sugar cane Farmers in Kwara State and Osun State of Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria, sugarcane is a prominent crop and the primary crop used to produce sugar. However, floods have been a major tragedy that has troubled Nigeria's small-scale farmers. The bulk of rural poor people are these small-scale farmers, and as poverty rates have been rising over time, corrective action is required. This study was therefore carried out to assess the poverty status of sugar cane farming households (affected by flood, and unaffected by flood) in Kwara/Osun State of Nigeria. The study employed two-stage sampling technique to select 120 sugarcane farming households in the study area. Descriptive statistics, the Flood Loss Estimation, Logit Regression and Foster Greer Thorbecke (FGT) are the empirical analytical tools employed to analyze the data collected for the study. The results of the poverty index analysis revealed that 46 percent of the respondents are relatively poor, the poverty depth was 0.16 which implies that 16 percent were below the poverty line and the poverty severity was 0.07 which implies that 7 percent of the respondents were severely poor. Also, it revealed that flood shocks, gender, household size, household income, access to credit and membership to social organization were significant determinants of poverty. The study then came to the conclusion that many coping mechanisms people employ are corrosive because they have detrimental long-term implications on the sustainability of household subsistence. For future risk assessments and flood mitigation, the study advises using a holistic strategy and adept models. The remedies outlined in this paper would help the government, private sector, and sugar cane farmers economically.