Kipkogei Shadrack, Han Jiqin, Mwalupaso Gershom, Tanui John, Brenya Robert
College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Jiangsu, P.R China.
Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya.
PLoS One. 2025 Jan 6;20(1):e0316014. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316014. eCollection 2025.
Addressing global food security demands urgent improvement in agricultural productivity, particularly in developing economies where market imperfections are perverse and resource constraints prevail. While microcredit is widely acknowledged as a tool for economic empowerment, its role in facilitating agricultural technology adoption and improving agricultural incomes remains underexplored. This study examines the synergistic effects of microcredit access and agricultural technology adoption on the incomes of maize farmers in Kenya. Using household-level data, we employ an endogenous switching regression framework to control possible endogeneity in access to microcredit. Our findings shows that microcredit access positively influences the adoption of advanced agricultural technologies. Key determinants, including marital status, use of fertilizer application, access to extension services, and cooperative membership, are identified as significant determinants of microcredit access. Notably, the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT) indicates a 40.52% increase in income among farmers who access microcredit, mainly driven by the timely adoption of high-quality seeds, improved agricultural technologies, and enhanced inputs. These results highlight microcredit's role in promoting allocative efficiency and enhancing Total Factor Productivity (TFP) within agricultural systems. Robustness checks, including propensity score matching and sensitivity analyses, corroborate these findings. The study recommends the implementation of targeted financial policies and educational initiatives meant to promote credit access, encourage savings, and enhancing financial literacy, particularly for credit-constrained households. Integrating these measures could strengthen rural financial markets and drive sustainable agricultural development across the regions.
解决全球粮食安全问题需要迫切提高农业生产力，尤其是在市场不完善且资源限制普遍存在的发展中经济体。虽然小额信贷被广泛认为是一种促进经济赋权的工具，但其在促进农业技术采用和提高农业收入方面的作用仍未得到充分探索。本研究考察了获得小额信贷和采用农业技术对肯尼亚玉米种植农户收入的协同效应。利用家庭层面的数据，我们采用内生转换回归框架来控制获得小额信贷过程中可能存在的内生性。我们的研究结果表明，获得小额信贷对采用先进农业技术有积极影响。包括婚姻状况、化肥使用情况、获得推广服务的机会以及合作社成员身份在内的关键决定因素被确定为获得小额信贷的重要决定因素。值得注意的是，处理组平均处理效应（ATT）表明，获得小额信贷的农户收入增加了40.52%，这主要得益于及时采用优质种子、改进农业技术和增加投入。这些结果凸显了小额信贷在提高农业系统配置效率和全要素生产率（TFP）方面的作用。包括倾向得分匹配和敏感性分析在内的稳健性检验证实了这些发现。该研究建议实施有针对性的金融政策和教育举措，以促进信贷获取、鼓励储蓄并提高金融知识水平，特别是针对信贷受限家庭。整合这些措施可以加强农村金融市场，并推动各地区的可持续农业发展。
