ABSTRACT

This study was carried out to determine the impact of rural banking Ifl financing Agricultural production in OkigWe Local Government kea o Imo state. Specifically, the objectives of the study are: to determine socio- economic features of respondents, determine factors that affect size of loan, determine the impact of those loans on productivity, Identify problems faced by respondents in loan acquisition and profer solutions towards solving the problems. Simple random sampling technique was used to select respondents and structured questionnaire served as the source for primary date. The date was analysed using descriptive statistics and multiply regression models. The conclusions drawn were: Banks were concerned with financing small-scale farmers based on loan size, in the socio-economjc factor, age of farmers, Annual farm income and family size were determined as having influence on loan size, the loan impacted positively on the respondent and the major problems encountered by respondents are: Long distance to issuing house, delay in loan processing , not aware of the programme and none

compliance of guarantors. Finally, the regression analysis revealed that the socio-eCOfl0mC factors explained 44.60% of the variation in loan size. The alternative hypothesis that there is relationship between loan size and the selected socio-economic characteristics was thus accepted based on the value of f-calculated and f-tabulated.