Factors affecting credit access from agricultural finance corporations among smallholder farmers in Lamu County
Date
2023
Authors
Ochanda, D.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
Smallholder production accounts for over 75% of the total agricultural output and over 70% of marketed agricultural produce in Kenya. The rate of agricultural credit access among smallholder farmers in Lamu County has been very low, which is a matter of great concern. Agricultural credit access among smallholder farmers is important in ensuring increased food production for food security, sustainable development, and poverty eradication. Therefore, the main focus of this study was thus to examine the factors affecting the rate of credit access from Agricultural Finance Corporation among smallholder farmers in Lamu County, Kenya. The specific objectives were to examine the effects of loan attributes on agricultural credit access, to assess the effects of borrower attributes on agricultural credit access, and to establish the effects of farm attributes on agricultural credit access. The study was based on the discouraged borrower theory as the main theory to ascertain the extent of the self-selection mechanism among smallholder farmers in Lamu concerning agricultural credit and its impact on credit access. In addition, the study utilized the rational choice theory of demand for financial services because the ultimate decision to borrow or not is a choice to be decided by the borrower, and the ability to pay theory was also used to link with the borrower attributes variable in the study with respect to the ability of the borrower to pay back credit at a specified future date. A sample of 500 smallholder farmer households was obtained from two sub-counties through a multistage sampling technique. The data was analyzed using factor analysis and regression analysis. The findings revealed that loan attributes and borrower attributes had a marginal positive effect while farm attributes had a marginal negative effect on agricultural credit access. The study recommends that AFC management should conduct intensive market sanitization among smallholder farmers in Lamu County on their loan requirements, lending terms, and conditions. Informed smallholder farmers will make lending decisions as a rational choice guided by understanding the costs and benefits of the borrowing decision. Also, county and national governments should work in synergy to develop mechanisms that will encourage agricultural credit access among smallholder farmers to enable the commercialization of smallholder farming and sustainable agriculture. This includes issuing title deeds to smallholder farmers with no deeds of land ownership, discharging title deeds charged to settlement schemes, developing county-specific and agricultural enterprise-specific government guarantee schemes for smallholder farmers who do not have collateral. Smallholder farmers should make proper arrangements to make loan applications within the season so as to avoid loan rejection
Description
Full- text thesis
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Citation
Ochanda, D. (2023). Factors affecting credit access from agricultural finance corporations among smallholder farmers in Lamu County [Strathmore University]. http://hdl.handle.net/11071/13420