The Role of Informal Credit on Agriculture: An Assessment of Small Scale Maize Farmers Utilization of credit in Jema`a Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria

Carried out to Assess the roles of informal credit to small scale maize farmers in Jema`a Local Government Area of Kaduna State. The data were obtained primarily by administering questionnaires to 75 farmers that were purposively selected from 4 villages in Jema`a Local Government Area. Data were collected on socio-economic characteristics of maize farmers, cost and returns of maize production and constraints militating against informal credit acquisition. The study showed that maize production in the study area was profitable. It was recommended that Suitable mechanism should be explored to provide coordination of various informal credit sources existing in the study area in order to streamline their basic operation with a view to instituting common conditionality and guidelines for lending of credit to small scale farmers.