Abstract

Credit financial access has been argued to be the engine of sustainable rural development and a factor necessary for household food security and poverty reduction. This study sought to establish the main factors that affect smallholder farmers’ access to credit financial services in Kenya. The logistic regression  results indicates that, the marginal effects of education level, occupation and access to extension services were statistically significant with positive effects on access to credit financial services. However, total annual household income and the distance to the credit source were statistically significant with negative influence on access to credit financial services. Overall, this paper concludes with implication for policy to establish credit/loans offices close to farmers in order to reduce lending procedures, risks, and educate them on perceptions on loan repayment. Moreover, the government should enhance the enforcement of credit input services in the form of in-kind lending to reduce fungibility into consumption expenditures. Finally, to realize food security, increased economic outcomes, and reduce poverty, it would be necessary to invoke enabling policy mechanisms to realizing equitable access to credit by smallholder farmers.

Key words: Determinants, credit access, credit financial services, smallholder, Kenya.