Assesment of the challenges as associated with servicing of agriculture loans by small scale farmers
Abstract
This study was on the assessment of the challenges associated with servicing agriculture loans by small scale farmers. The study was guided by the following objectives; to find out the post harvesting conditions that affect farmers while servicing their loans, to find out the natural factors that hinder the farmer’s ability to service their loans, to find out the level of contribution of terms of the loan towards the ability of the farmers to service their loans.
The study employed descriptive, cross-sectional and explanatory design. Questionnaires in addition to literature review were applied in order to collect data. The respondents were small scale farmers from Mbale district.
The study revealed that majority of the respondents were females (58%) and majority of the farmers faced challenges while servicing their agriculture loans (60%) out of the sample selected which caused the farmers to be affected by post-harvest conditions, natural factors and terms and conditions also affected farmers as result farmers 52% of the farmers had agriculture loans twice, 24% of the farmers had agriculture loans once, and 14% of the farmers had agriculture loans three times and 10% of the farmers had agriculture loans four times. 10% of the farmers had agriculture loans four times and 44% of the farmers serviced their agriculture loans weekly and 28% of the serviced their agriculture loans both monthly and annually.
Further the challenges that affected farmers are not significantly related with the factors that affect farmer’s ability to service agriculture loans because computed probability values are greater than critical Probability value P= 0.05.