Adequate access to credit is necessary for the sustainable development of agriculture. This study uses a double hurdle model to investigate what affects farming households’ credit participation and amount, and a Probit model to find out credit constraints. For this purpose, the data from a survey of 292 farming households in Afghanistan was utilized. The study finds that households obtain credit for their agricultural activities from various formal and informal sources. The results of the double hurdle model reveal that the financial activities of the households were positively determined by crop diversity, education, number of adults in a household, size of land, and access to extension. Non-agricultural income decreases the likelihood of participation. The results of the analysis of credit constraints indicate that formal credit did not help small-scale and remoter farming households; however, these households relied on informal credit, especially when they faced income shock. Furthermore, religious belief increased the chances of avoiding formal credit but not informal credit. It is suggested that formal credit should be expanded to rural areas, especially to small-scale farming households. Policy makers should also consider increasing access to extension. Formal financial institutions should provide Sharia-compliant credit, which increases the confidence level of households in using formal credit in Afghanistan.

Access to credit is essential for sustainable agricultural development. This paper evaluates the impact of formal and informal agricultural credit, access to extension services, and different combinations of agricultural credit and extension services on the economic outcomes of farming households in Afghanistan. This study applies a quasi-experimental approach (propensity score matching) and inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) analysis. The data comes from a survey of 277 randomly selected farming households in the three districts of rural Afghanistan. The results show that having access to formal agricultural credit has a positive and differentiated impact on the farming costs and net revenue of farming households. However, the effects increase when a farming household has access to both formal credit and extension services. The results also reveal that credit constraints affect farming costs and net revenue. The study provides some practical implications for agricultural development policymakers. First, formal agricultural credit affects farm revenue in rural Afghanistan. Second, the impact of credit bundled with agricultural extension services on farm revenue is higher than the impact of the provision of each service separately. Therefore, a more sustainable agricultural credit arrangement should be supplemented by extension services for farmers in Afghanistan.

PurposeNatural calamities impair agricultural households' ability to invest in their farms. Facilitating access to agricultural credit may assist farmers in the face of negative revenue shocks. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of agricultural credit on the agricultural input expenditure of disaster-affected farmers in Bangladesh.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes data on 2,519 disaster-affected farming households from Bangladesh's Household Income and Expenditure Study (HIES) 2016–2017, which employs a nationwide representative five-year interval survey. Further, propensity score matching (PSM) identification strategy is used to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated (ATET), and Mahalanobis distance matching (MDM) is used for the robustness test. In addition, heterogeneous analysis has been conducted to explore the impact of agricultural credit on different types of farming households.FindingsThe findings reveal that access to agricultural credit has a favorable and significant effect on farm input expenditure for disaster-affected farmers. Therefore, agricultural credit accessibility could be utilized as a policy tool to assist disaster-affected farmers in improving their investment capacity, and hence, agricultural output.Originality/valueThis study, using a quasi-experimental design of access to agricultural credit on agricultural input expenditures of the disaster-affected farming households in coastal areas of Bangladesh to estimate the causal effect.