Comparative Study of Sesame and Soybean Farming to Poverty Reduction among Rural Farmers in Benue State-Nigeria

Abstract

The research relates the prospects of sesame and soybean to poverty reduction among rural farmers in Nigeria. Purposive sampling was used to select 200 farmers for the study. Gross margin analysis and Foster Greer Thorbecke Index (FGT) measure of poverty were used to analyse data collected to meet the objectives of the study. The results reveal that sesame farmers were having a higher average annual gross margin and making more profit per hectare from their farming enterprise than the soybean farmers. Farmers in the respective farming systems were poor as indicated by their respective poverty per head count (α₀) values of 0.9400 and 0.9000 respectively for sesame and soybean enterprises. The poverty depth in this research revealed that majority of the farmers in the respective farming system were living below the poverty line. The research, therefore, concludes that sesame farmers were making more profit from their farming business as compared to soybean farmers.