Access to finance from different finance provider types: Farmer knowledge of the requirements

PLoS One. 2017 Sep 6;12(9):e0179285. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179285. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Analysing farmer knowledge of the requirements of finance providers can provide valuable insights to policy makers about ways to improve farmers' access to finance. This study compares farmer knowledge of the requirements to obtain finance with the actual requirements set by different finance provider types, and investigates the relation between demographic and socioeconomic factors and farmer knowledge of finance requirements. We use a structured questionnaire to collect data from a sample of finance providers and farmers in Java Island, Indonesia. We find that the most important requirements to acquire finance vary among different finance provider types. We also find that farmers generally have little knowledge of the requirements, which are important to each type of finance provider. Awareness campaigns are needed to increase farmer knowledge of the diversity of requirements among the finance provider types.

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture / economics*
  • Demography
  • Farmers*
  • Humans
  • Indonesia
  • Knowledge*
  • Middle Aged
  • Perception
  • Socioeconomic Factors

Grants and funding

This work was funded by the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (CF8561/2012) to EW. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.