IMPROVED RURAL WOMEN POPULATION IN EDUCATION: PANACEA FOR COMBATING FOOD CRISIS IN EBONYI STATE

The study investigated the roles of rural women in agriculturalproduction, causes and strategies for combating food crisis in EbonyiState. The population of the study was 213 respondents comprised of15 lecturers from EBSCO1, 4 lecturers from EBSU and 194 extensionofficers of the Ministry of Agriculture Ebonyi State. The sample sizeof 131 was determined using Yaro Yameni formula and drawnthrough simple random sampling applied only on the extensionofficers, whereas all the 19 lecturers were involved in the study.Three research questions and one null hypothesis guided the study.Twenty-eight items questionnaire was constructed by the researcher,validated and its reliability coefficient of 0.81 was determined usingCronbach Alpha method and was used in generating data for thestudy. The data collected was analyzed using mean with standarddeviation to answer the research question, whereas the nullhypothesis was tested using ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance. Thestudy found that the seven factors examined in this study were rootcauses of food crisis. It was therefore recommend that governmentshould establish global fund to support micro finance to boost smallscale farmers’ productivity, among others