Abstract

This study aims to identify the factors that limit the accessibility of rice farmers to credit in Benin. Data were collected from 120 randomly selected rice households in the municipality of Glazoue. The logit dichotomous model was used to analyze the data and various statistics were produced for this purpose using the Stata 13 software. The results of prediction model show that the model has a high predictive power and the explanatory power giving by the value of the Pseudo 2 of McFadden (60.85%) show that more than 60% of the explanatory variables of the model make rice farmers’ access to credit easier to understand. Literacy (P <0.001) and the part of income from rice in the monthly income of the rice farmer (P <0.001) had a positive effect on the rice farmer's capacity to have access to credit. Rice as the main speculation in terms of income (P <0.001) and household size (P <0.001) had a negative effect on access to credit. In order to facilitate rice farmers' access to agricultural credit, particular emphasis should be placed on the level of literacy of farmer, his monthly income from rice production, the size of his household and his main crop. This study recommends that the actors adapt to the service offering of microfinance to the socio-economic conditions of rice farmers to enable them to access credit and increase rice production. This would help to meet the demand for rice, and, in turn, contribute to the reducing food insecurity in Benin.

Key words: Determinant, access to credit, rice production, Benin.