Impact of the Availability of Credit to Small-Scale Maize Farmers, a Case of Marondera District
Author(s)
Kudakwashe Gloria Mlambo , He Jun ,
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Abstract
The development of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector is facing many problems, and the lack of financial support for agriculture is an important aspect that affects its development. Therefore, improving the availability of credit for farmers is of great significance to promoting agricultural development and increasing farmers’ income. Based on a field survey of farmers’ credit access in Marondera District of Zimbabwe, this paper explores the factors affecting the availability of credit to maize growers in Zimbabwe and focuses on the impact of social capital towards credit. The results showed that strong social ties, the density of membership, cash contributions’ index, labour contribution index, the gender of the household head and NGO intervention showed a positive impact towards access to credit. This paper, therefore, puts forward some suggestions to improve the farmers’ credit access, that is, to improve the farmers’ cultural level through the development of education, to carry out land reform that promotes the equity of land ownership, to increase the social capital through “knowledge resources” and “identity resources.”
Keywords
Zimbabwe; Social capital; Availability of credit, small-scale maize farmers
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