Empirical Determination of Socio-economic Status and its Relationship with Selected Characteristics of Rural Male Farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

Determination of socio-economic status (SES) is a very useful concept in understanding certain attributes of a person. For effective extension service, there is the need to know the SES and associated characteristics of farmers. This paper therefore sought to determine the SES of rural male farmers in Kwara State and as well examining the relationship between the SES score and farmersʹ personal characteristics. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to sample 20 farmers from each of eight villages in each of the four zones that are Kwara State Agricultural Development Programme (ADP). A total of 640 respondents were sampled. Direct face-to-face interview methods with structured schedule were used for the purpose of data collection. Data were analyzed using ANOVA, multiple regression, point-biserial correlation and t-test statistical tools. For the four ADP zones, 94 SES indicators were collated. From this, only 46 SES items were found valid across the state. For zones A, B, C and D, the valid items were 66, 63, 69 and 71 respectively. There was a positive relationship between SES and some selected personal characteristics of the rural male farmers in the state. It was revealed that SES level was explained by adoption rate, leadership position, cosmopolitaness, educational level and attitude to innovation (R2 = 0.962). Among the variables, attitude to innovation correlates positively (r = 0.973) with SES than other personal construct for SES. This is followed by adoption (r = 0.936), cosmopoliteness (r = 0.931), leadership (r = 0.16) and educational level (r = 0.027). The SES of rural male farmers could therefore be predicted by any of the tested constructs.