THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT
This study examined the role of financial institutions in agricultural development. (A case study of Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank) with a view to make useful suggestions and recommendations as way of enhancing the development of agricultural sector. The population of the study includes large and small-scale farmers and the sampling method adopted for the study is the stratified random sampling in order to ensure adequate representation of the population. In order to achieve the objective of making useful suggestions that would improve the agricultural sector, a number of hypotheses were made and tested. Samples of one hundred and eighty responses were collected and analyzed using the chi-square (ײ). It was discovered that bank credit loan scheme is making some impacts in lending loans to farmers. The result also showed that farmers prefer informal to the formal sources of finance mostly because of the demand of formal institutions that farmers most present collateral security. Finally, the study also indicated that the problems facing agricultural financing.