MARKETABLE SURPLUS AND FARM HOUSEHOLDS’ POVERTY STATUS IN LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Poverty is an un-acceptable physiological and/or social deprivation of human well-being.Income generating livelihood is a sustainable factor of poverty alleviation and marketable surplus available to farm households is a source of income generation. This study examinedmarketable surplus and farm households’ poverty in Ikorodu Local Government Area (LGA) of Lagos State. Simple random sampling was used in collecting data from 120 farm households. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, FGT index and regression models. Results showed that 82.5% of the household heads were male while
94.2% were married. Also, 58.3% of the farm households had low marketable surplus (LMS) while 41.7% had high marketable surplus (HMS). The LMS households had the highest proportion of poverty incidence (55.6%) than HMS households (44.4%). Furthermore, educational status (p<0.05), farm experience (p<0.01), poverty status (p<0.01) and farm size (p<0.01) were significant factors affecting marketable surplus of households in the study area. Consequently, poor farm households tend to have lower marketable surplus in the study area. The study therefore recommended capacity building for farmers by stakeholders to
boost marketable surplus generation capability of farm households.