This study determined the impact of micro-finance on poverty level of rural women
farm households in Abia State, Nigeria: Implication for policy intervention. A multistage
random sampling technique was used to select the local government areas,
communities and respondents in the three (Aba, Ohafia and Umuahia) agricultural
zones of the State. The sample size was 240 (120 a piece for rural women farmer
borrowers and non borrowers). Instrument of data collection was a set of structured
and pre-tested questionnaire administered on both groups of rural women farmers.
The result indicated that incidence of poverty or head count ratio was 0.558 for the
rural women farmers borrowers and 0.933 for the rural women farmer non
borrowers; poverty gap otherwise known as income short fall was 0.4547 for the
rural women farmer borrowers and 0.6995 for the rural women farmer non
borrowers. The result of the paired t-test showed that micro-finance impacted
significantly on annual farm income, farm size and fertilizer use level of rural women
farmer borrowers at given levels of significance. It was however, recommended that
increased subsidy policy on agro-inputs and increased funding by the micro-finance
will significantly aim at reducing the poverty levels of these women.