Constraints to Accessing Micro Credit and Loan Scheme of Bank of Agriculture among Farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria Implications for Extension Service Delivery

The study examined constraints to accessing micro credit loan scheme of Bank of Agriculture BOA among farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria Implications for extension service delivery. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were used in selecting one hundred 100 respondents for the study. Data were collected using structured interview schedule questionnaire and analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean scores and standard deviation. The study revealed that micro credit loan scheme 88.6 were the most patronized among the rural farmers. Others such as ECOWAS, IFAD project and ATHP programme were not patronized at all, probably because the type of projects sponsored by these credit loan scheme are not important to the respondents. The respondents farmers were highly constrained by late release of funds M= 1.27 , grace period too short M= 1. 17 , excessive bureaucracy M= 1. 14 , too short payback period M= 1. 13 , services not regular M= 1. 13 , among others. The Bank of Agriculture staff also noted that they were constrained by late release of approved funds by head quarters of the Bank of Agriculture M= 1.43 , loan diversion M= 1.27 , poor funding of field officers M= 1.20 , lack of awareness by borrowers M= 1.10 and insufficient staff M= 0.93 . The study recommends that adequate awareness campaign on the availability of micro credit loan scheme by Bank of Agriculture should be created in order for the beneficiaries to be knowledgeable about it. It highlights the need for approval of more funds under the scheme and timely release of funds when needed especially during planting season in order to enable the farmers to make judicious use of it for optimum productivity. Mbah Evangeline N | Jiriko, R | Agada, M.O. "Constraints to Accessing Micro-Credit and Loan Scheme of Bank of Agriculture among Farmers in Enugu State, Nigeria: Implications for Extension Service Delivery" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-4 , June 201

Queue modelling for successful implementation of the cash-less policy in Nigeria

In line with the realization of the vision of the cash-less policy as being fronted by the Central Bank of Nigeria, this paper seeks to solve problems of long waiting time and queue lengths of customers known to be associated with the queuing system of the Automated Teller Machine (ATM), an indispensable piece of machinery for successful implementation of the policy. To this end, the M/G/1 model, a single-channel queuing model with Poisson arrivals, General distribution service time has been applied in modelling the ATM queuing system across three commercial banks: Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB), Diamond bank and Ecobank all located in Lafia, Nasarawa State Nigeria, in order to reveal the associated queuing problems and proffer solutions via an empirical approach of distribution fitting to real time data of inter arrival and service times. The result revealed problems of long queue length, long waiting time and ATM (Server) over utilization to be common in all the three banks. The result of sensitivity analysis established that, an upgrade of ATM processor speed such that customers spend one (1) minute on the average in service, will ensure that no customer wait in queue and an average utilization of the ATM to check breakdown

Bacteria organisms in grow out Clarias gariepinus mortality in Jos Area

The investigation of bacteria in grow-out catfish was carried out from February to June, 2008. 100 dead Clarias gariepinus were collected from ten ponds (A-J) distributed in Jos and its environs. Results from the various ponds showed that Escherichia coli were present in all the location found, while 87.0% of the total samples obtained were positive with bacteria isolates. The isolates were shown to include Aeromonas species (11.5%), Escherichia coli (35.6%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (15.0%), Streptococcus faecalis (13.8%) and Klebsiella aerogenes (18.4%) of which pond F had 16.1 % of bacteria organisms while ponds B, G and H were both 9.2%, respectively

Effects of Socio-Economic factors of Loan Administrators on Recovery Rate among Agricultural Cooperatives in Benue State, nigeria

This study was undertaken to analyze the effect of socio-economic factors of loan administrators on loan recovery rate among agricultural co-operatives in Benue State of Nigeria. A purposive and simple random sampling technique was used to select 130 respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression. The result showed that majority of the respondents were male (58.46%), married (67.69%), educated (63.01%), with mean cooperative experience of 14.39 years (86.92%) and household size between 1 - 5 members. The result also showed that respondents were averagely young (36 years) and were relatively low income earners (N 2,480,000 per annum). The result shows that loan size was the only variable that significantly and positively affected loan recovery rate. The coefficients of salary, age, years in education, household size, cooperative experience, marital status and sex had no effect on recovery rate. It was recommended that administrators should give higher portfolio size loans as these will trigger them to carefully look at business activities in their coverage areas that are capable of repaying loans from precede of sales and cash flow

Sensitivity analysis of the dynamic CO2 storage capacity estimate for the Bunter Sandstone of the UK Southern North Sea

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) in subsurface reservoirs has been identified as a potentially cost-effective way to reduce CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. Global emissions reductions on the gigatonne scale using CCS will require regional or basin-scale deployment of CO2 storage in saline aquifers. Thus the evaluation of both the dynamic and ultimate CO2 storage capacity of formations is important for policy makers to determine the viability of CCS as a pillar of the greenhouse gas mitigation strategy in a particular region. We use a reservoir simulation model representing the large-scale Bunter Sandstone in the UK Southern North Sea to evaluate the dynamics and sensitivities of regional CO2 plume transport and storage. At the basin-scale, we predict hydrogeological changes in the storage reservoir in response to multiple regional carbon sequestration development scenarios. We test the sensitivity of injection capacity to a range of target CO2 injection rates and fluctuations in CO2 supply. Model sensitivities varying the target injection rates indicate that in the absence of pressure management up to 3.7 Gt of CO2 can be stored in the Bunter region over 50 years given the pressure constraints set to avoid fracturing the formation. Long-term (approx. 1000 years), our results show that up to 16 Gt of CO2 can be stored in the Bunter region without pressure management. With pressure management, the estimate rises to 32 Gt. However, consideration must be given to the additional operational and economic requirements of pressure management using brine production

Is African philosophy progressing?

No Abstrac

Intimate Partner Violence: A Public Health Problem

No Abstract Available Afrimedic Journal 2011;2(1):34-3

Numerical simulation and optimisation of IOR and EOR processes in high-resolution models for fractured carbonate reservoirs

Carbonate reservoirs contain more than half of the world’s conventional hydrocarbon resources. Hydrocarbon recovery in carbonates, however, is typically low, due to multi-scale geological heterogeneities that are a result of complex diagenetic, reactive, depositional and deformational processes. Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) and Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) methods are increasingly considered to maximise oil recovery and minimise field development costs. This is particularly important for carbonate reservoirs containing fractures networks, which can act as high permeability fluid flow pathways or impermeable barriers during interaction with the complex host rock matrix. In this thesis, three important contributions relating to EOR simulation and optimisation in fractured carbonate reservoirs are made using a high-resolution analogue reservoir model for the Arab D formation. First, a systematic approach is employed to investigate, analyse and increase understanding of the fundamental controls on fluid flow in heterogeneous carbonate systems using numerical well testing, secondary and tertiary recovery simulations. Secondly, the interplay between wettability, hysteresis and fracture-matrix exchange during combined CO2 EOR and sequestration is examined. Finally, data-driven surrogates, which construct an approximation of time-consuming numerical simulations, are used for rapid simulation and optimisation of EOR processes in fractured carbonate reservoirs while considering multiple geological uncertainty scenarios