Do credit constraints affect agricultural technology adoption? Evidence from Nigeria

Download or read book Do credit constraints affect agricultural technology adoption? Evidence from Nigeria written by Balana, Bedru and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The agricultural sector in Nigeria is characterized by low productivity that is driven in part by low use of modern agricultural technologies. Poor access to credit is seen by many observers to be one of the key barriers to adoption of these technologies. Literature suggests that credit constraints impede individuals from investing in productivity enhancing agricultural technologies and, thus, poor farmers are unable to engage in high-return agricultural activities. Much policy discourse and research literature associates agricultural credit constraints with supply-side factors, such as farmers not having access to credit sources or high costs of borrowing, and, thus, recommend that such supply-side constraints be addressed to improve smallholders’ access to credit. However, demand-side factors, such as borrower’s risk-averse behavior, financial illiteracy, collateral requirements, or perceived high transactions costs, can also play important roles in credit-rationing for smallholder farmers.