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The purpose of this paper is to analyze determinants of farmers’ participation and credit rationing in microcredit programs using survey data from Ghana.

The authors use the Garrett Ranking Technique to analyze farmers’ reasons for participation or non-participation in credit programs, a probit regression model to estimate factors influencing farm households’ participation, and the Heckman’s sample selection model to identify factors influencing farm households’ probability of being credit rationed by microcredit programs.

The results reveal that farm households participate in credit programs because of improved access to savings services and agricultural loans. Fear of loan default and lack of savings are reasons for non-participation in credit programs. Furthermore, membership in farmer-based organizations (FBOs) and the household head’s formal education are positively associated with farmers’ participation in credit programs. The likelihood of farmers being credit rationed (i.e. their loan applications were either rejected or the amount of credit they applied for was reduced) is less likely among higher income farmers and members of FBOs such as farmer cooperatives and savings clubs.

The findings suggest that policy strategies aiming to improve access to savings and credit services should educate farmers and strengthen FBOs that could serve as entry points for financial service providers. Such market smart strategies have the potential to improve farmers’ access to financial services and reduce rural poverty.

Although existing studies have examined farmers’ participation in credit markets and credit rationing separately, the unique contribution of this paper is the analysis of participation in microcredit programs as well as the likelihood of farmers being credit rationed in Ghana.

Credit is central in labour allocation decisions in smallholder agriculture in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour allocation decisions in rural Burkina Faso.

The study used a direct elicitation approach of credit constraints and applied a farm household model to categorize households into four labour market participation regimes. A joint estimation of both the multinomial logit model and probit model was applied on survey data from Burkina Faso to assess the effect of credit constraint on the probability of choosing one of the four alternatives.

The results of the probit model showed that households’ endowment of livestock, access to news, and membership to an farmer-based organization were factors lowering the probability of being credit constrained in rural Burkina Faso. The multinomial logit model results showed that credit constraints negatively influenced the likelihood of a farm household to use hired labour in agricultural production and perhaps more importantly it induces farm households to hire out labour off farm. The results also showed that the other components of household characteristics and farm attributes are important factors determining the relative probability of selecting a particular labour market participation regime.

Facilitating access to credit in rural Burkina Faso can encourage farm households to use hired labour in agricultural production and thereby positively impacting farm productivity and relieving unemployment pressures.

In order to identify the effect of credit constraints on farm households’ labour decisions, this study examined farm households’ decisions of hiring on-farm labour, supplying labour off-farm or simultaneously hiring on-farm labour and supplying family labour off-farm under credit constraints using the direct elicitation approach of credit constraints. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine this problem in Burkina Faso.

Due to rapid urbanization, rice consumption in Togo has also rapidly increased. Most consumers prefer imported rice over domestically produced rice due to the higher quality of the imported rice. The purpose of this paper is to show that it is possible to upgrade the quality of Togo’s domestically produced rice by providing technical and management support in the form of contract farming.

Cross-sectional data were collected using a multi-stage sampling technique. An endogenous switching regression model was used for data analysis.

The results show that by participating in contract farming, paddy rice quality was upgraded from Grade IV (poor quality) to Grade I (premium quality). The factors influencing this upgrade in the quality of paddy rice grown through contract farming are: the number of extension visits to the farmer, the mode of threshing used by the farmer, and the agro-ecological zone of the farmer.

The data for this study are limited to one country, Togo and this may have implications for generalizing the results for other countries.

This study is original research that contributes to an improved understanding of the impacts of contract farming on the quality of agricultural products produced in developing and emerging economies.

This paper analysed the motives behind farmers' savings with Rural and Community Banks (RCBs) and the effect of these savings on rice yield in the Hohoe Municipality of the Volta region of Ghana.

A multi-stage sampling approach was used to draw a random sample of 222 rice farmers, and a structured questionnaire was employed to collect cross-sectional data. A Likert scale was used to rank the motive behind farmers' savings while the endogenous switching regression model was used to estimate the effect of savings on rice yield.

The results of the study showed that most farmers mobilise savings to enhance farm investment which is critical to increasing rice productivity. Improved labour and fertiliser use had a positive influence on rice yield, while farm size had an inverse relation with rice yield. Further, the findings show that savings with RCBs help mobilise the necessary finance to enhance rice productivity. In terms of the treatment effect of savings, the results indicate that farmers who patronise saving products of RCBs recorded a statistically significant average yield of 1.41 Mt/ha more than those not patronising saving products from any bank.

While the literature on agricultural finance focuses largely on credit, this study demonstrates that savings hold significant benefits for the development of agriculture through productivity gains. The importance of this demonstration is further shown by the fact that credit access depends on the ability to save in most developing countries.

There is a need to educate farmers about the essence of patronising formal savings products.

This study represents the first attempt at linking farmers' savings to agricultural productivity using an econometric methodology in Ghana. The study serves as a foundation paper and for that matter will serve as a guide to future research on savings mobilisation and agricultural productivity nexus.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the key factors that influence the adoption of agrochemicals on plantain farms in Ghana.

The paper employs probit estimation using data from a stratified random sample of 249 farmers in four districts in Ghana.

The results show that adoption of agrochemicals is positively associated with: being literate, older than 40 years of age, having higher income from sales, living in villages distant to Accra (capital of Ghana), having access to hi‐tech machinery, being migrant, and being linked to extension services and financial institutions. Contrary to expectation, a farmer's gender and association with farmer‐based organizations (FBO) and non‐governmental organizations (NGO) did not make a difference.

The results suggest that there are no exclusions to innovation systems such as agrochemical adoption based on gender or living in rural areas; women are just as technologically empowered as men, while rural farmers have an option to retain their indigenous management practices or adopt new and improved practices such as using agrochemicals. Major efforts to improve access to agrochemical adoption lie with government extension officers, as the functions of FBO and NGO have yet to make a significant difference. More needs to be done to bring young, illiterate, low income and indigene farmers into inclusive plantain science techniques and applications in Ghana.

The paper reveals how vulnerable groups such as rural populations and women plantain farmers are being included in systems that support agrochemical adoption.

The purpose of this paper is to examine women farmers' access to credit from rural banks (RBs) in the Upper East region of Ghana. The paper examines the nature of credit supply by the RBs to their customers and the proportion that goes to women over a ten year period. It proposes the modelling of socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors influencing women farmers' access to credit from financial institutions in general and rural banks (RBs) in particular. The paper aims to expand the frontiers of rural and agricultural financing as well as the integration of gender interest in the financial sectors of developing countries.

In total, 200 women farmers were randomly selected and information on socio‐economic, technical and institutional issues solicited from them. Ratio analyses were carried out and the logistic regression used to model the socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors that have influence on access to credit from RBs by women farmers.

The paper provides empirical evidence of close gender parity in terms of credit supply by RBs in Ghana. About 44 per cent of the credit portfolios of RBs in Ghana go to women and the remaining 56 per cent goes to men. Education, application procedures, access to land, income level, farm size, membership to economic associations, savings, type of crop grown, interest rate and distance to RBs are the socio‐economic, technical and institutional factors that influence women farmers' access to credit.

The paper is limited to only women farmers. There is the need for further research that considers men and women so as to establish whether or not there is gender insensitivity by financial institutions in Ghana and other developing countries.

This paper provides empirical implications for the development of a vibrant financial sector in developing countries that provide equal access to men and women, rural and urban dwellers as well as actors in the formal and informal sectors.

This paper brings to light the issues of access to productive resources such as production credit by women in developing countries, particularly Ghana.

Market transactions in large vegetable markets call for transparency with utmost urgency. The reason are that buyers are located at distant places and the volume of sales is very high. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the development of an automated system in market transactions in order to bring about transparency with concrete evidence available to small and medium farmers who are then able to repose trust in the system by acquiring the right price for the right product. The farmers can also confirm the effectiveness of the system by testing it themselves.

First, a theoretical framework of marketing procedures of larger vegetable markets has been constructed with tomato as a vegetable of study and the Madanapalle tomato market as a market studied through surveys. Second, methods of functioning in marketing procedures including pricing and auctioning have been modified according to the objective. An android-based application has been used to develop an automated model. Surveys have been conducted to understand the perceptions of farmers in marketing procedures and price determination at the village level, and to test the automated model in the study market.

Both quantitative as well as qualitative approaches indicate that, the proposed automated model in the modified marketing procedural system is of benefit to all stakeholders in the supply chain.

In model testing, gaps in inputs from a greater number of buyers during auctioning remains a limitation of the study.

For sustainable growth of tomatoes or any other vegetables it is essential that the farmers trust the marketing procedural system. This is possible if farmers obtain the right price for their products. Once the automated system is implemented, buyers acquire high-quality goods at desired prices, which further encourages more buyers from other regions to participate in the auctioning/tendering process stimulating an increased demand.

This paper is unique in its pricing function and scores of stakeholders. Pricing function involves the farmers’ input along with the buyers’ inputs whereas scores of these two stakeholders have been obtained through the inputs of commissioning agents.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of agricultural credit rationing by formal lenders in Ghana.

This study employed descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Heckman's two-stage regression model to identify types of rationing faced by farmers and investigate factors that influence agricultural credit rationing by formal financial institutions. Data used in this study are gathered through a survey of 595 farmers in seven districts within Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana.

The result reveals that farmers face three types of rationing. Evidence from the Heckman two-stage models shows that engagement in off farm income generating activities, increase in farm size, positive balances on accounts and commercial orientation of the farmers has the potential to reduce rationing of credit applicants by formal lenders.

The results provide information on the factors that need to be considered as important in an attempt to reduce agricultural credit rationing by formal lenders.

The value of this study is that farmers would use the results of this study to improve access to required amount of agricultural credit from formal financial institutions. The information would also benefit stakeholders in the agricultural sector, particularly youth in agriculture program organized by Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana as how to improve access to credit and reduce rationing of program participants by formal financial institutions.

The lack of proper dissemination of market information is observed as the main reason of poor marketing of the agricultural produce in India. Application of information and communication technology (ICT) can bridge this information gap by means of dissemination of required marketing information specifically targeted at the farmers. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of ICT on marketing of rice in Uttar Pradesh, one of the biggest northern states of India.

As rice is the dominant crop of Uttar Pradesh, the impact of ICT on net price received (NP_f) by rice producers of the state is studied. An attempt is also made to identify the factors that influence the use of ICT. Primary data are collected through a multistage sampling technique. Single, multiple dummy and binary logistic regression models are used in the present work.

A significant difference is observed in the NP_f of the farmers using ICT than that of non-users. Education and land holding type also have a positive and significant impact on ICT use.

In the existing literature, the study related to the impact of ICT on agricultural marketing is almost absent for India in general, and Uttar Pradesh in particular. ICT has created impact in almost all directions of life. It is expected that the implementation of ICT will create a notable impact on the income level of the farmers. The present study will give a direction in this regard. The study is based on primary data and original work of the authors.