Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to determine the level of flexibility in loan products offered to smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya and to examine the effect of flexibility on access to credit.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses primary survey data from a sample of smallholder farmers in Siaya County in Kenya who had borrowed from various lending institutions within the study area. The paper develops an index variable of loan flexibility using multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) technique. The model is estimated using both OLS and truncated regression analyses. Access to credit is measured as the amount of loan borrowed by each farmer.

Findings

The authors find that the level of flexibility of loans offered to farmers is low. Furthermore, the authors find that the level of flexibility is not significantly correlated to access to credit. Further analysis using individual components of flexible loans show that refinancing and lines of credit are more likely to improve access to credit when farmers are more educated and wealthier, respectively. The age of a farmer, the type of lender, the type of loan, education and household wealth are the main determinants of access to credit.

Originality/value

The paper adds to the debate on access to credit by showing that theoretically, while loan flexibility should lead to higher credit access, this is not a key determinant of access to credit in this context.

中文翻译：

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肯尼亚小农的灵活贷款和获得农业信贷的机会

目的

本文的目的是确定提供给肯尼亚 Siaya 县小农的贷款产品的灵活性水平，并检查灵活性对获得信贷的影响。

设计/方法/方法

本文使用了来自肯尼亚 Siaya 县小农样本的初步调查数据，这些小农从研究区域内的各种贷款机构借款。本文使用多重对应分析 (MCA) 技术开发了贷款灵活性的指标变量。该模型是使用 OLS 和截断回归分析来估计的。获得信贷的衡量标准是每个农民借入的贷款金额。

发现

作者发现提供给农民的贷款的灵活性水平很低。此外，作者发现灵活性水平与获得信贷没有显着相关性。使用灵活贷款的各个组成部分的进一步分析表明，当农民受教育程度更高和更富有时，再融资和信贷额度更有可能改善获得信贷的机会。农民的年龄、贷款人的类型、贷款的类型、教育和家庭财富是获得信贷的主要决定因素。

原创性/价值

该论文通过表明理论上虽然贷款灵活性应该导致更高的信贷机会，但在这种情况下并不是获得信贷的关键决定因素，从而增加了关于获得信贷的辩论。