Rural Credit Policy Research Articles

The relationship between rural credit policy and deforestation: evidence from Brazil

The relationship between rural credit policy and deforestation: evidence from Brazil

Rural credit concentration in Brazil in 2017

One of the main public policies for promoting and developing Brazilian agriculture is rural credit. This policy seeks to stimulate production and modernize the sector by applying financial resources for the purposes of costing, investment, industrialization and commercialization. However, historically, these resources have been unevenly concentrated throughout the national territory, favoring the South and Southeast regions, since the moment the rural credit policy was institutionalized. Observing this poor distribution, this study sought to measure the distribution of agricultural credit in relation to its productive response, through tabular analysis and the redundancy index for the major regions and their respective federative entities in 2017. It was concluded that credit continued to be concentrated in the South and Southeast regions, but when analyzing the productive counterpart, there was no concentration.

The Role of Rural Credit in Agricultural Technology Adoption: The Case of Boro Rice Farming in Bangladesh

Rice agriculture provides millions of households with a steady source of income and employment. However, for small and marginal farmers, the exorbitant cost of production inputs presents a formidable obstacle in their pursuit of acquiring it. Credit constraints are a significant impediment to the adoption of agricultural technologies. Therefore, this paper identifies the determinant of access to rural credit and its impact on Boro rice production technology adoption in Bangladesh using cross-sectional data. The study employed probit regression, propensity score matching (PSM), inverse probability weighting (IPW), and inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) techniques. The findings indicate that age, family size, working members, and involvement in safety net programs negatively and significantly influence access to rural credit, while earning persons in the family, literacy, rice farming experience, remittance, and total income positively influence access to rural credit. The positive and significant ATT values suggested that access to rural credit has a positive and significant effect on technology adoption and the level of technology use. It was also found that access to rural credit has a heterogeneous effect. In particular, non-government organization (NGO) credit has a more significant impact on technology adoption than formal bank credit. Access to credit and the adoption of agricultural technologies can be greatly improved with the help of a location-specific rural credit policy and strong monitoring from the formal banking sector.

The Impact of Rural Credit on Cultivated Land Use Efficiency: An Empirical Analysis Using China Rural Revitalization Survey Data

Insufficient capital investment coupled with limited land resources significantly limits cultivated land use efficiency (CLUE). China’s rural credit policy system is currently growing, yet the impact of farmer-level credit on CLUE remains understudied. Therefore, this study investigated whether rural credit enhances CLUE by using the China Rural Revitalization Survey (CRRS) data. It explored the impact and mechanism of rural credit on CLUE using least squares regression and mediation models. According to our results, the average CLUE level for farmers in the study area was 0.661, which still had much room for improvement compared with Japan, which also has a large population but limited land. In addition, access to rural credit positively affected CLUE, with cultivated land scale-up and technological applications mediating the rural-credit-driven increase in CLUE. Further analyses of the rural credit allocation mode (RCAM) indicated that farmers’ use of credit for investment in agricultural production factors boosted CLUE more than non-farming allocation of credit funds. These findings suggest that the government should continue to increase support for rural credit while improving the monitoring mechanism for credit allocation to prevent rural credit de-farming from hindering CLUE improvement.

Using Genetic Programming to Identify Characteristics of Brazilian Regions in Relation to Rural Credit Allocation

Rural credit policies have a strong impact on food production and food security. The attribution of credit policies to agricultural production is one of the main problems preventing the guarantee of agricultural expansion. In this work, we conduct family typology analysis applied to a set of research data to characterize different regions. Through genetic programming, a model was developed using user-defined terms to identify the importance and priority of each criterion used for each region. Access to credit results in economic growth and provides greater income for family farmers, as observed by the results obtained in the model for the Sul region. The Nordeste region indicates that the cost criterion is relevant, and according to previous studies, the Nordeste region has the highest number of family farming households and is also the region with the lowest economic growth. An important aspect discovered by this research is that the allocation of rural credit is not ideal. Another important aspect of the research is the challenge of capturing the degree of diversity across different regions, and the typology is limited in its ability to accurately represent all variations. Therefore, it was possible to characterize how credit is distributed across the country and the main factors that can influence access to credit.

PRONAF's funding of tillages in the brasilian northeast: behavior of financed products during the years 2013-2021

Family farming has been gaining a new look since the 1990s. A look that has sought to characterize it in a positive way, that is, to characterize it for what it is; and no longer defining it in a negative way, that is, for what it is not, as if it were the destiny of family farming to become a large monoculture production. Thus, family farming became associated, among other factors, with food production; it have been receiveing its own rural credit policy, formalized in Pronaf. However, there have been serious questions about Pronaf's ability to meet the regional diversity of family farming and, above all, about the concentration of its resources in crops that reproduce the model of productive specialization associated with crops for export. In this sense, our article seeks to observe whether, in the case of the Northeast region, Pronaf has managed to finance crops linked to local food generally associated with diversified production. To do so, we analyzed data on agricultural funding for crops granted through Pronaf during the period from 2013 to 2021 for the Northeast region. We conclude that, although there is a diversity of crops financed by Pronaf in the Northeast, the growing share of corn cultivation in the total resources requires attention.

O papel das políticas de crédito rural na geração de renda agrícola na agricultura familiar do estado de Pernambuco, nordeste brasileiro - tendência espacial e cenário futuro

ABSTRACT: Agriculture is central in Brazil’s political and socioeconomic history; agricultural exploitation is mainly conducted by families, creating a type of agriculture developed in small rural properties named family farming. In Brazil, family farming accounts for a very diverse group of businesses, of which 91% of all the establishments are family establishments that build different production strategies according to different degrees of potentiality and precariousness. This study evaluated the role of rural credit policies in developing family farming activities with agricultural income generation in northeastern Brazil on various family-based farms. For this, the authors conducted a case study in Pernambuco, analyzing the spatial relationship between the distribution of family farms and the access to credit resources from the National Program to Strengthen Family Farming from 2006 to 2017 and the change probabilities in types of farms considering the next 10 years, given the maintenance of conditionsreported in the analyzed period. Results indicatedthe weakening of productive potentiality of farming activities in family farms in Pernambuco, with a significant change in the distribution of family farm types, a reduction in the participation of Specialized Farms and an expressive growth of Farms with Rural Residents. The findings also indicated the relevance of access to rural credit in the supply of production needs of different family farm types and development of farming activities with income generation.

Crédito rural no Espírito Santo: análise dos resultados dos anos 2000 a 2012

O presente trabalho é um estudo sobre a política de crédito rural no Espírito Santo, definida como instrumento importante no desenvolvimento econômico e social, através do atendimento das necessidades dos produtores que precisam de recursos que possibilitem seus investimentos. Sua função é ainda mais importante no Espírito Santo, uma vez que o território capixaba é em sua maioria agrário, sendo que a área efetivamente urbanizada se concentra em poucas cidades situadas principalmente na região Metropolitana. Assim, analisar e caracterizar os resultados da política do crédito rural no estado é imprescindível para entender o apoio que o setor está a receber através de tal política. Desse modo, o objetivo é caracterizar a política de crédito rural no estado capixaba a partir da determinação do atual cenário da sua economia, do entendimento dessa política agrária e da análise dos dados do crédito direcionado ao campo.

RURAL CREDIT AND THE LIVESTOCK PROCESS IN THE MICROREGION OF VILHENA, RONDÔNIA, WESTERN AMAZON

The study has as general objective to analyze the scenario of the municipalities in the microregion of Vilhena, State of Rondônia, based on the federal government's rural credit policy, in order to identify the possible livestock processes that would be carried out in this microregion. It is an applied, descriptive, cross-sectional research with a quantitative approach, since the objectives generate knowledge for practical application, which includes the number of contracts and the volume of financial resources for agriculture and livestock in the municipalities of Chupinguaia, Parecis, Pimenta Bueno, Primavera de Rondônia, São Felipe D'Oeste and Vilhena of the micro-region of Vilhena, Rondônia, Brazilian Amazon, in the period corresponding to the years 2000 and 2010. Data collection was carried out through reports from the rural credit statistical yearbook of the Central Banco do Brasil for the years 2000 and 2010. Based on the results found by the research, it was evidenced that in the municipalities of the microregion of Vilhena there was a process of cattle ranching, through the incentive of the rural credit policy granted to family rural producers, where it was observed that among the six municipalities that comprise In the micro-region of Vilhena, all of them presented a strong stimulus to the livestock sector, demonstrating a reversal of agricultural activity for livestock in this micro-region.

El Sistema Nacional de Crédito Rural en Brasil: principales continuidades y discontinuidades en el período 2003-2014

This article analyzes the main continuities and discontinuities of Brazil’s National Rural Credit System, with an emphasis on the National Program to Strengthen Family Farming, between 2003 and 2014. To this end, between 2014 and 2017 a series of interviews was carried out with managers and former federal public managers who played a strategic role in the area of agricultural financing, before and during the time period studied, in addition to a literature review and data consultation of the Central Bank of Brazil and of ministries whose performance is linked to the theme. The main results indicate continuities in rural credit policies and procedures in the governments of Presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Some changes observed, which cannot be considered as ruptures from earlier periods, involved mainly the expansion in the volume of resources applied, reduced bureaucracy for accessing financing, expansion of the target public, new lines of credit, a greater discussion with civil society and the construction of new complementary instruments for rural credit aimed at family farming, such as farm insurance.

Technical Efficiency and Public Policies in Agriculture: An Analysis for the Eastern Amazon Region

The agricultural sector in one of the most dynamic industries of the Brazilian economy and is responsible for about 30% of the GDP of the state of Pará, located in the Brazilian Eastern Amazon region. This is mainly due to the public policies developed for the sector, with emphasis on the National Policy of Technical Assistance and Rural Extension (PNATER) and Rural Credit, in addition to conditional cash transfer programs such as Bolsa Família (Family Allowance). Given this scenario, the purpose of this research is to determine the technical efficiency of the agricultural rural facilities of Pará, and observe the effect of these policies on their inefficiency. The methodology employed in order to achieve these objectives is the stochastic frontier approach, and the data used was obtained from a special tabulation based on the 2006 Agricultural Census. The main results evidence that rural credit policies, social welfare programs, and technical support are important to reduce the technical inefficiency of the rural facilities of the State of Pará. The latter, however, is not statistically significant.

Assessing the effectiveness of rural credit policy on the adoption of integrated crop-livestock systems in Brazil

This study analyzes the effectiveness of rural credit policy to increase the adoption of ICLS. Analyzes are based on a survey with 175 farmers in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. Our estimates suggest that rural credit has positive and relevant impacts on the adoption of ICLS. In turn, the adoption of these systems may also involve investments in fixed capital and increases in operational costs, which create additional demand for rural credit. Other factors, such as access to extension policy, production scale, ex-ante perceptions, and market infrastructure also explain ICLS adoption. The access to rural credit policy is also determined by dependence on farm income, farmer’s perception of transaction costs, and supply of credit in the municipality. The study finally discusses important implications for the devising of rural credit policies and the diffusion of sustainable production systems in developing countries.

Production behavior and prices of beef cattle in the Brazilian Amazon

This study evaluates the production behavior and prices in the beef cattle industry in the Brazilian Amazon. We used time series data obtained from various sources and employed multiple regression and polynomial regression analysis. For the price analysis, we used the classical time series model and separated the seasonal and cyclic indices based on the 12-month centered moving average. The analyses covered the period from 1990 to 2015, when the regional cattle population grew at a rate of 5% per year, compared to the national growth rate of 1.7%. The price analysis reveals the existence of cycles in regional cattle ranching, defined mainly by an inverse correlation between the price of fattened cattle and the slaughter of matrices. As for the variables determining the growth of the cattle population, we find that rural credit policy assumes an important role in enabling the supply of resources for financing livestock projects that are more popular than investments in agriculture. The creation and structuring of state agricultural defense agencies in the late 1990s represents an important measure in the institutional sphere, as the implementation of animal health policies and programs has generated a favorable environment for the expansion of investments in meat production and processing, in addition to opening up opportunities for trade in the domestic and international markets.

Credit Constraints and Agricultural Productivity of Rural Households in Nigeria

This study, employing descriptive statistics and the Endogenous Switching Model, examined the link between credit constrained condition and agricultural productivity of rural households in Nigeria. Findings show that under credit constrained condition, education, labour, technology and other production inputs were not optimally utilized by the households. Credit constrained households had lower productivity than a random household from the sample would have had. However, in credit constrained households, being a male-headed household implied higher productivity. On the other hand, high value of assets and cost of hired labour had negative effects on productivity, while level of education and access to information had no significant effects. The study thus recommended intensification of efforts at ensuring the formulation of rural credit policies that will provide access to a reasonable amount of credit to rural households to secure required farm inputs, while formal credit institutions should diversify their loan scheme to incorporate different financial needs of the households.

Court and Country

The Northern Song Empire (960–1127) was the most spatially integrated and bureaucratically centralized polity in the late medieval world, and its rulers articulated ideological claims to unitary and universal sovereignty. Both its monarchs and ministers shared a discourse of authority that postulated the throne as the only legitimate source of authority, which was not openly challenged by organized blocs of aristocratic, religious, or urban elites. Yet, the Northern Song Empire was much less autocratic in practice than in theory, since monarchs chose to delegate the making of state policy and the civil and military administration of the empire to a hierarchy of central, regional, and local officials, so that intra-bureaucratic dynamics limited arbitrary monarchical action. Using a micro-level case study of the abolition of the Green Sprouts rural credit policy (qingmiao fa 青苗法) in 1085–1086, this article analyzes the debates within the Northern Song imperial bureaucracy about the reach of state power. The court’s anti-reformist high officials were united in their opposition to the policy, and individual ministers used a court-centered discourse of authority to denounce it for undermining the public good of the polity. Yet, its abolition required mobilizing extensive bureaucratic support within the central government and in local administration. By paying closer attention to the contexts and generic constraints of political rhetoric, and the intricacies of bureaucratic dynamics, it is possible to demonstrate more subtle fluctuations within the force fields of socio-political authority at court and in the country.

Socioeconomic Analysis of Rural Credit and Technical Assistance for Family Farmers in the Transamazonian Territory, in the Brazilian Amazon

<p>In Brazil, Rural Credit and Technical Assistance policies for family farming were formulated with the goal of promoting rural development in a sustainable and integrated manner. This study is the result of the <em>Monitoring and assessment of public policies for territory management in the Pará Amazon</em> project, undertaken by the Federal University of Pará (UFPA), aimed to evaluate the main socioeconomic impacts and limitations for the execution of these policies in the Transamazonian Territory. It is characterized as qualitative and exploratory, developed from bibliographic research and field research, based on data obtained through interviews conducted with 22 families of farmers who are beneficiaries of Rural Credit, the B modality of the National Programme for Strengthening Family Agriculture (PRONAF) and of the Technical Assistance Policy, whose sample corresponds to 10% of total contracts made effective within that Territory, between the years of 2013 and 2014. In addition to these farmers, for the analysis of the Technical Assistance service, interviews were conducted with extension workers from eight organizations, one of which is a state public company and seven of which are outsourced companies hired by the Federal Government to provide this service. The descriptive analysis shows that PRONAF B focuses on areas that produce short cycle food crops and on fishing activities. The technical assistance service provided by the public company is carried out in all the cities within the Territory, but only meets 10% of the demand; the service provided by the outsourced companies also occurs in all cities and its greatest setback is the delay in the release of funds by the Federal Government, which generates delays in the agricultural calendar and discontinuity in the productive activities, due to the end of the term of the companies’ contracts.</p>

A sustentabilidade dos financiamentos do PRONAF para a agricultura familiar

O trabalho analisa de que maneira a questão da sustentabilidade se reflete na formulação e na incorporação das políticas públicas de crédito rural no Brasil. A pesquisa utilizou uma abordagem qualitativa para compreender o sentido que os atores sociais dão à ideia da sustentabilidade, como interpretam suas próprias experiências e encaram as situações conflituosas geradas em torno do tema. O enfoque teórico-metodológico baseou-se na abordagem neo-institucionalista denominada “três is” e toma como fundamentação empírica o funcionamento das políticas de crédito rural presentes no Território do Meio Oeste Contestado (SC), com destaque para o Programa Nacional de Fortalecimento da Agricultura Familiar (Pronaf). Percebe-se que a incorporação da sustentabilidade já integra as orientações gerais do Pronaf, mas que esse avanço conceitual quase não se traduz em resultados práticos significativos junto aos estabelecimentos dos agricultores familiares e suas organizações sociais e econômicas. Tais constatações indicam que ainda há um longo caminho a se trilhar para que a ideia da sustentabilidade seja plenamente incorporada no Pronaf, reorientando suas normas operacionais e as condutas dos atores rumo ao desenvolvimento sustentável.

Determinantes da demanda de crédito rural por pecuaristas de corte no estado de São Paulo

Este trabalho tem o objetivo principal de identificar os determinantes da demanda e do acesso ao crédito rural por bovinocultores de corte no estado de São Paulo. Para atingir tal objetivo, foram coletados dados primários por meio de entrevistas presenciais junto a uma amostra de 86 pecuaristas. Os dados foram analisados por meio de um modelo logit. Constatou-se que todos os pecuaristas que demandaram crédito rural obtiveram acesso a pelo menos um contrato. Os resultados mostraram que pecuaristas que têm maior número de propriedades rurais, maior intensidade em tecnologia na produção, fontes de renda oriunda de atividades não rurais, são mais novos, adotam gestão de risco de preço e participam de organizações associativas relacionadas à produção rural possuem maior probabilidade de demandar e acessar o crédito rural. Por fim, foram apresentadas algumas sugestões para a política de crédito rural para a pecuária de corte no estado de São Paulo.

Policy rationing in rural credit markets

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a discussion on the idea of “policy rationing”. Policy rationing refers to constraining impacts on farm credit through policy action or inaction. To present the ideas the author discusses ten themes in policy rationing, ranging from macro‐finance policies to smart lending and financial inclusion.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is developed as a narrative on agricultural credit policies based largely on existing literature.FindingsThis paper argues that the various critiques of rural credit policy in favor of free market principles have generally not worked in developing economies. Large numbers of farmers do not have access to formal credit. It is argued that there is a role for government and credit programs.Research limitations/implicationsThe opinions expressed in this paper are based on existing literature and not all ideas hold with general agreement across researchers and practitioners. The discussion is not exhaustive and in some cases the ideas might have been parsed further.Practical implicationsIn this paper the author discusses ten themes that he thinks are relevant for a balanced discussion of farm credit in a development context. These themes illustrate a variety of complexities with respect to rural credit policy. The author ends by restating the themes in the form of ten questions that should be asked in whole, or in part, before any farm credit policy is field‐implemented.Social implicationsThis paper deals with a broad range of issues on rural credit policy. It is directed towards a reformation of ideas about credit policy, especially in developing economies. It is argued that, all things considered, on balance there is a role for government in rural credit policy.Originality/valueThere is much discourse amongst development economist about the role of government and credit policy in agricultural development. By thinking of government action or inaction as a form of policy rationing, some clarification is brought to the policy debate.

Reviewing the Development of Rural Finance in Vietnam

The objective of this article is to review the development of the rural financial system in Vietnam in recent years, especially, after Doi moi. There are two opposite schools of thought in the literature on rural credit policies in developing countries. One is the conventional supply-side (government-led) approach while the other is called “a new paradigm” that emphasizes the importance of the viability of financial providers and the well functioning of rural credit markets. Conventional theories of rural finance contend that rural finance in low-income countries is generally accompanied by many failures. Contrary to these theories, rural finance in Vietnam does not encounter the above-mentioned failures so far. Up to the present time, it is progressing well. Using a supply-side approach, methodologically, this study reviews the development of the rural financial system in Vietnam. The significance of this study is to challenge the extreme view of dichotomizing between the old and the new credit paradigms. Analysis in this study contends that a rural financial market that, (1) is initiated and spurred by government; (2) operates principally under market mechanisms; and (3) is strongly supported by rural organizations (semi-formal/informal institutions) can progress stably and well. Therefore, the extremely dichotomizing approach must be avoided.