The Nexus Between Pilfering Menace and Crop Farmers’ Income Shock: Evidence From Nigeria

Özet

Pilfering has a big impact on the crop farming industry and it isthreatening the sustainability of the industry. To generateinformation that can be used to inform crop farmers on how toeffectively mitigate pilferage on their farms, the study investigatedthe factors influencing pilferage and its effects on farmers’ income inDelta State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling method was applied tochoose respondents for the study. A sample size of 135 farmers werecarefully chosen. The study data was analyzed with descriptivestatistics, binary logistic regression, linear regression and one-wayANOVA. The findings showed that they had a mean age of 48 yearsand were mostly females who were also married. Majority of themwere educated. The mean family size was 7 people and averagefarming experience of 11years with mean farm size of 1.15ha. Theresult disclosed pilferage index of 0.68, suggesting that 68% of farmerswere victims of pilfering. The findings revealed that plantain has thehighest proportion of the crops pilfered with 46.5% while cassava wasthe least with 11.5%. The ANOVA result indicates a statisticallysignificant difference (F = 177.633; p<0.000) in the mean of incomelosses to pilferage on the farms for the different selected crop types.Pilfering on farms was significantly influenced by age, farmingexperiences, educational status, farm size, household size, security,attractiveness of farm, employees with high number of dependentsand distance or farm location. The findings showed that pilferingresulted to high cost of security, quitting farming activities,withdrawal from growing certain crops and reduction in output. Mostof the respondents (78.5%) did not use any form of measure to curb themenace of pilferage on their farms. It was recommended that tacklingof pilfering on the farms should involve the synergy amonggovernment, community and the farmers.