This study investigated the determinants of loan repayment among small-scale cassava farmers in Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. Data were collected with structured questionnaire from 160 randomly selected farmers. Data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics, multiple regression and likert scale. Results showed that males were dominant (56.6%) in cassava production and majority (37.5%) were between 41-50 years. About 50% had farm income of less than N100,000.00 while about 46.3% had less than N50,000.00 as their off-farm income. Also, the results found that majority (44.4%) obtained loans from informal sources. Factors that significantly affected loan repayment include off-farm income and interest rate (p ≤ 0.05) and farm income (p ≤ 0.05). The major causes of loan diversion were seasonal activities in the agricultural sector (66.9%) and inadequate sustainable income (65.6%) among others. The major constraints faced by the farmers in terms of loan repayment were high interest rate and short period of repayment among others. Government should encourage the formal loan sources to open branches in the rural areas for easy loan accessibility by farmers and to obtain loan with moderate interest rate.
The study evaluates the influence of credit policies on institutional lending behaviour of farmers in Cross River State. It also ascertains the relationship between credit and agricultural development. Using econometric methods, results reveal that credit quota and portfolio lending devices and pursuit of cheap interest rate polices has negative effect on credit supply while policies associated with plough back of rural savings mobilization and availability of guarantee were marginally effective. Results also show that farmers demand for credit was influenced mainly by the availability of credit subsidies and availability of guarantees. Also, the study showed that a positive but inelastic relationship exist between credit and agricultural output. Finally, it was revealed that some factors which militate against the effectiveness of agricultural credit polices include lack of viable technologies, defective production environments and wrong perception of the roles of credit in development. An agenda for credit policy reforms stressed the need to evolve and adopt policies, which foster desirable financial technologies, which serve both the interest of institutional borrowers and lenders.
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