Smallholder agriculture in many developing countries
has remained largely self-financed. However, improved
productivity for attaining greater food security requires
better access to institutional credit. Past efforts to
extend institutional credit to smaller farmers has failed
for several reasons, including subsidized operation of
government-aided credit schemes. Thus, recent efforts
to expand credit for smallholder agriculture that rely on
innovative credit delivery schemes at market prices have
received much policy interest. However, thus far the
impacts of these efforts are not fully understood. This
study examines credit for smallholder agriculture in the
context of Uganda, where agriculture is about 35 percent
of gross domestic product, most farmers are smallholders,
and the country has introduced policies since 2005 to
extend credit access to the sector.