23.01.2014 Views

Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

Impact Of Agricultural Market Reforms On Smallholder Farmers In ...

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

The most common fertilizers distributed are urea and 23-21-0 and the most common seeds are<br />

maize followed by soybeans. The average value of the input-credit APIP package is about MK<br />

2,043 (US $45). Households usually pay back the loan in cash or a combination of in-kind and<br />

cash at a specified loan closing date.<br />

5.2.9 <strong>Farmers</strong>’ Associations and Clubs<br />

<strong>On</strong> average, each EPA has about one farmers association and 121 farmers’ clubs. Clubs are<br />

usually made up of a few farmers and are useful for farmers to market their cash crops together<br />

(such as selling tobacco on the auction floor) and obtain input on credit as a group. The most<br />

common types of clubs are tobacco and horticultural clubs. Associations are usually more formal<br />

and are made up of several clubs. Both clubs and associations are, in most cases, initiated by the<br />

MOAI, but in some instances they are self-initiated by the farmers themselves (more for clubs<br />

than associations).<br />

5.2.10 Formal and <strong>In</strong>formal Credit Services<br />

Each EPA has, on average, 3 moneylenders, less than one commercial bank branch, about 2<br />

Malawi Rural Finance Corporation (MRFC) branches, about 1.5 NGOs, and very few have<br />

Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCO) (see Table 5.79). NGOs and MRFC branches are<br />

more heavily concentrated in the South while no moneylenders were reported in the Center. We<br />

also find more commercial bank branches in the North. Not all these credit institutions lend to<br />

small farmers however. For example, only 12 percent of commercial banks and 2/3 of SACCO<br />

lend to small farmers. The other credit institutions all lend to small farmers. As Table 5.80<br />

shows, the number of moneylenders and NGOs seems to have increased since 1995. For the<br />

other credit institutions, few EPAs report changes in their availability in their respective areas.<br />

274

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!