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ANALYSIS OF BORROWING AND REPAYMENT OF CREDIT AMONG LIVESTOCK FARMERS IN CROSS RIVER STATE, NIGERIA

This study examined borrowing and repayment of credit among livestock farmers in Cross River State, Nigeria. Data for the study was obtained from the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Calabar. Descriptive statistics such as percentage count, mean and tables were employed in the analysis. It was discovered that BOA in collaboration with Women Fund for Economic Empowerment (WOFEE), National Directory of Employment (NDE), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Micro Enterprise Development Agency (MEDA) and Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA) provided high loan disbursement to agricultural businesses. In-house loan borrowed the highest amount of loan N55,155,000 from 2009-2014 and WOFEE had the highest loan repayment percentage of 86%. Result also shows that the total amount of N101,456,326 was disbursed during the period and 53.7% (N52,484,619.55) was recovered, which shows an average loan default. The highest (79.6%) loan repayment was made in 2012 and the lowest (39.5%) was made in 2014 over the period. Poultry farmers received the highest loan disbursement of N25,122,050 and repayment of 8,219,467.93, while fish farmers had the lowest loan disbursement of 3,770,000 and repayment of 1,474,392.4 from 2009-2014 respectively. The study recommends among others, more supervision to loan beneficiaries so as to encourage high repayment.


INTRODUCTION
Agriculture is the deliberate effort to modify a portion of the earth's surface through the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock for sustenance or economic gain (Rubenstain, 2003). Agriculture can be a source of growth for the national economy, a provider of investment opportunities for the private sector, and a prime driver of agriculture related industries and the non-farm economy. Despite Nigeria's rich agricultural resource endowment, however, the agricultural sector has been growing at a very low rate. Less than 50% of the country's cultivable agricultural land is under cultivatable. Even then, small holder and traditional farmers who use rudimentary production techniques, with resultant low yields, cultivate most of this land. The small holder farmers are constrained by many problems including those of poor access to modern input and credit. (Mangong, Aikpi, Olayemi, Yusuf, Omonona, Okorua, and Idachaba, 2005). To address this problem, successive government has embarked on policies and programmes aimed at boasting sustainable agricultural productivity in Nigeria (Effiong and Onyenweaku, 2006). In spite of these efforts, the information available suggests that rural financial markets still remained under developed. A survey on household access to credit facilities in Nigeria conducted by Central Bank of Nigeria, shows that 68% of rural households had no access to credits, due primarily to low volume of business in rural areas, the processing requirements of small amounts of loan demanded by rural farmers, lack of collateral securities by most rural dwellers, low income and hence low repayment capabilities among other factors (CBN 2006). Basically, credit has been described as one of the most important factor militating against the productivity of agriculture especially among rural dwellers (Ugbajah and Chidebelu 2013). One of the reasons for the decline in the contribution of agriculture to the economy of Nigeria is the lack of a suitable national credit scheme and paucity of credit institutions (Afoliabi, 2008). Bank of Agriculture primarily is concerned with agricultural financing at both the micro and macro levels as well as micro, small and medium enterprise financing (Igwilo, 2012). Olagunju et al (2013) revealed that the major constraint to Bank of Agriculture performance included: underfunding of the Bank by the Federal Government, changes in Government policies in finances of Agriculture, frequent changes in the identity of the Bank, increase in interest rate and closure of branches, organizational factors, lack of tool and mandatory 20% deposit by the famers. Loan repayment default can be checked through a well written and descriptive criteria for borrowing. The criteria for borrowing are designed to give the highlight of what is involved in sound business borrowing. More experienced owners and manager should find it useful in re-evaluating their borrowing operations, lending institutions are not only interested in loan repayment, they are interested in borrowers with healthy profitmaking business. Therefore, whether or not collateral is required for a loan, the set loan limitation and restrictions to protect themselves against unnecessary risks and at the same time against poor management practices by their borrowers. (Adam 2015). In order to make loan constantly available to farmers and ensure proper or adequate funding of agriculture the government have set up specialized institution and schemes such as the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) to ensure that farmers have access to credit at affordable interest rate, collateral and ensure simplicity on accessing loans at the right time. Guidelines have also been set up to encourage these institutions such as the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) and Commercial Banks to give credit to farmers without giving into traits of repayment inability or loan default as well as ensure that farmers have access to credit when they need without delay in processing of loans. It is appears that majority of farmers are still not benefiting from this schemes and the financial institutions are still faced with the problem of loans repayment which affects disbursement (Brown, 2008).Therefore, the study was set to analyze borrowing and repayment of credit among livestock farmers in the Bank of Agriculture in Calabar, Cross River State. The specific objectives are to; examine the disbursement and repayment of agricultural loan, determine the total amount of loan disbursement by BOA to livestock farmers and assess the total amount of loan repayment by livestock farmers.

METHODOLOGY
The study was carried out in Calabar, Cross River State, using the Bank of Agriculture (BOA), Women Fund for Economic Empowerment (WOFEE), National Directory of Employment (NDE), Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Micro Enterprise Development Agency (MEDA) and Nigeria Cassava Growers Association (NCGA) as case study. The State is geographically located between latitude 4 0 15 and 7.00 0 north of the equator and longitude 7.15 0 and 9.30 0 east of the Greenwish meridian.it is situated in the rain forest belt. Calabar consists of Calabar municipality and Calabar South Local Government Area. The estimated population is about 720,862 according to 2006 population census. Calabar consist of three major tribes namely; Efut, Qua and Efiks who are mostly small holder famers and traders.
The study population consists of farmers who are engaged in poultry, piggery and fishery production, and had borrowed loan from BOA from 2009-2014. Secondary data was used for the study and was collected directly from the Bank of Agriculture.

METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
This involved the use of descriptive statistical, using means, percentages and tables to explain the level of disbursement and repayment of loan.  Therefore, these shows that loan default can lead to reduction in the supply of loan to the agricultural sector.
These study agree with Brown (2008) that carried out a study on the "Efficiency Analysis of Credit Recovery by the Nigerian Agricultural Cooperative and Rural Development Bank, Calabar Branch" he concluded that between 2002 -2008 none of the loan recovery was up to 100% and therefore the rate of loan repayment by the Bank Of Agriculture (BOA), formerly NACRDB cannot be said to be efficient.   Table 4 shows that the total number of loan disburse was N3,776,000 and repayment was N1,474,392.4. The highest loan disburse was in 2014 which was N1,100,000 while repayment was in N259,050. While the lowest amount of loan disburse was in 2010 which was N200,000 and repayment was N177,000.The highest number of beneficiaries was in 2013 and 2014 which were 6 and the lowest amount of beneficiaries was 2009, 2010 and 2012 which was one (1) beneficiaries. From 2009-2014 the interest rate fluctuated between 12% and 8%. There was no loan disburse to fish farming in 2011.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The major conclusion derived from the study was that there was average loan default in the bank of agriculture, and that in-house loan had the highest loan disbursement to agricultural businesses. Also collaboration with other institutions like MEDA, WOFEE, NDDC, NDE, NCGA, has brought about increase loan disbursement to farmers in agricultural businesses. The non-recovery or high loan default of agricultural loans will destroy the long run viability of the Bank of Agriculture. This is because the amount of loan available would not be enough to meet prospective needy farmers, which restrict the roles of credit to agricultural development and affect farmers' access to loan. In the light of the above, it is recommended that the bank should; ensure that farmers are credit worthy before loan is disbursed to reduce default, have a stable interest rate for a particular agric business since interest rate fluctuates within a particular year, which affect repayment, improve on the loan recovery-effort and educate farmers on the need to repay loan at the stipulated time.