Abstract

The need to alleviate the poverty of the financially excluded farming households has become inevitable in Nigeria. Therefore, this research work centred on the poverty profile and inequality among farming households in Ebonyi State. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 477 farming households and primary data collected with the aid of structured questionnaire and interviews. Data were analyzed using Foster, Greer and Thorbeecke (FGT) Index and Gini Index. The results show that poverty incidence and inequality were higher among the rural farming households with incidence of 45% and Gini index of 0.319 compared to 30.6% poverty incidence and Gini index of 0.217; 18.5% poverty incidence and Gini index of 0.173 for semi-urban and urban farming households respectively. Poverty incidence, depth, severity and inequality increases as the household sizes increases. Furthermore, age (β = -0.028; p) of the households head, age square (β = -0.0001; p), household size (β = 0.063; p), dependency ratio (β = 0.024; p), households’ monthly income (β= 0.0002; p), extension visit (β = -0.064; p), years in cooperative society (β = -0.010; p),  and primary occupation (β = -0.121; p),  were the significant factors that influenced the poverty status of farming households in Ebonyi state. Therefore, policies that are geared towards rural households’ empowerment should be implemented by different tiers of government in Ebonyi State. In addition, orientation on proper family planning for birth control should be carried out for the farming households in Ebonyi State with the aim of reducing large family sizes which have continued to increase poverty in Ebonyi State.

Key Words: Poverty, Inequality, Expenditure, Determinants, Foster, Greer and Thorbeecke (FGT) Index, Gini Index