Briefs
Credit to agriculture. Global and regional trends 2012–2020
Access to formal credit is critical to farmers for purchasing inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, plant protection materials or animal feed. In the absence of personal savings, borrowing from informal sources (such as moneylenders, relatives and friends) may involve unduly high interest rates and unfavourable conditions, which may make many agricultural operations uneconomical. The lack of access to credit is particularly problematic for farmers as there is a gap between the time that money is spent on cultivating crops or raising livestock, and the time money is made from the sale of the products.
Credit to agriculture measures the amount of loans and advances given by the banking sector to farmers or to rural households, to agricultural cooperatives or to any agri-related businesses.
FAOSTAT provides credit data series from 1991 to 2020. This briefs analyzes the global and regional trends for the period 2012 to 2020.