Accessing of rice farmers' to agricultural credit and analysis of the economic and financial performance of the microfinance institutions in South Togo

Access to suitable production means is required for producers to improve their profitability. As a result, agricultural financing appears to be a critical tool for attaining this goal. As a result, various programs and donors have been attempting for decades to put up initiatives that would make it easier for the most disadvantaged populations, including the primarily agricultural rural world, to access sources of financing. Due to poor performance, the majority of these programs have failed. As a result, the introduction of microfinance was a positive development. In recent years, this sector, which by its very nature should be closer to the rural world, has begun to drift away from it. The aim of this study is to look into the factors that influence farmers' access to credit and how credit affects rice farm profitability. Second, this research looked at the impact of agricultural credit availability on the performance of microfinance institutions. For this purpose, data was collected from 102 producers living in two paddy production zones in southern Togo, as well as the two main microfinance institutions (FUCEC-Togo and WAGES) in the city of Lomé. Face-to-face interviews as well as the Kobotoolbox and CSPRO programs were used to collect data during the survey. The Heckman model, the treatment effect model, and the linear regression approach were used to examine the data collected through the survey investigation. The data was analyzed using IBM SPSS and STATA 13 statistical applications, as well as Rstudio. The study first used descriptive statistics to analyze the socio-demographic and farm characteristics of the producers and the microfinance institutions. The Heckman two-stage selection model and the treatment effect model were then used to determine the factors of access to finance and its impact on rice farmers' farm profitability. Finally, the linear regression model was used to investigate the impact of agricultural credit supply on the performance of microfinance firms. Gender, asset type, producer experience, access to credit information, primary occupation, and land ownership status of the producer are all factors of rice growers' access to credit, according to the findings. Gender, producer experience, access to credit information, and land ownership status all have a beneficial impact on credit availability. However, asset type and the producer's main occupation have a negative impact. It also demonstrates that whether or not rice farms have access to loans, it has little bearing on their profitability. The average treatment impact of credit access, on the other hand, is statistically significant. It also shows that the farmer's degree of education, expertise in the field, and lastly, the type of rice farmed are the most important elements affecting the profitability of rice fields. In terms of microfinance structures, the findings reveal that agricultural credit supply has a negative impact on the MFIs in this study's two financial performance ratios. Because there is insufficient evidence to establish a solid and accurate conclusion, the last result lacks robustness. According to the research results, microfinance institutions should improve their agricultural financial services to better meet the demands of rural populations. The proliferation of ways through which information about financial service offers can be disseminated Integrating the enhancement of farmers' educational levels into rural support initiatives Continuation and completion of the development of enormous expanses of rice in all rice-growing locations.