Access To And Management Of Credit By Rice Farmers At The Kpong Irrigation Project.

ABSTRACT The study was conducted in the Dangbe West District of the Greater Accra Region. The main objective of the study was to find out how rice farmers access and manage credit to improve their families standard of living. The specific objectives were to find out about available credit packages for rice farmers at the Kpong Irrigation Project, examine why rice farmers at Kpong Irrigation Project access credit, determine the benefits rice farmers may derive from using credit, evaluate the problems (if any) that rice farmers encounter with the use of credit and also access how rice farmers manage the credit taken. It was hypothesized that Ho1 There is no relationship between source of credit accessed and the use of credit. Ho2 There is no relationship between type of credit facility accessed andannual income. The snow ball sampling was used to select two hundred rice farmers for the study. Six key informants were also purposively selected. The respondents were interviewed using a structured interview guide. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software to generate frequency and percentage distributions. The chi-square statistic was used to test the null hypotheses. The results revealed that majority of rice farmers were aware of two or more sources from which they could access credit. These sources include formal, semi-formal and informal sources. Respondents accessed loans to finance their farming activities in areas such as land preparation, purchasing farm inputs such as seed rice, agro chemicals as well as for harvesting and threshing. The results revealed that respondents derived benefits from the use of credit including purchasing inputs and use of machinery to ensure high yield, undertaking land preparation, attending to welfare needs of family members as well as marketing their produce from accessing credit. Challenges encountered include small loan sizes, delays in disbursements and high interest rates. The chi– square analyses revealed a significant difference between source of credit and use of credit so Ho1 was rejected. It was concluded that rice farmers had adequate knowledge about credit facilities and accessed credit from a variety of formal, semi-formal and informal sources to help in their farming activities. Farmers derived benefits from these loans in the short run. They faced certain challenges like late disbursement of loans. Due to training given to clients before and after disbursement of loan, rice farmers were able to use loans effectively for the intended purpose. It is recommended that credit providers repackage loans to make them more attractive, iv and also intensify training programmes so that loans are used for the intended purposes and encourage more women to undertake rice farming so as to improve standard of living of families.