developing countries initiated credit programmes with the
idea that rural smallholder farmers will have access to
formal sources of credit (Dong and Feathersone, 2010).
In Ghana, several policies were adopted to promote
access to financial services by farmers. These policies
include provision of capital for the establishment of
specialized bank to serve agriculture, Agricultural
Development Bank (ADB) and Rural banks (Addaeh,
1989). Rural banking system was introduced in 1976
when it was realized that Agricultural Development Bank
(ADB) tends to be urban based and do not have the
capacity to reach large proportion of farmers (Kumah and
Agbogah, 2001). The objective of establishing rural banks
was to provide financial intermediation in the rural areas
of the country to promote accelerated growth of the
economy and to improve the living standards of majority
of people in the agricultural sector.
The Bank of Ghana also sets minimum deposit rate
and places ceiling on lending rate. In addition, it
mandated all banks to allocate 20% of their outstanding
credit to the agricultural sector. These policies rather led
to high default rates and accumulation of non-performing
assets with consequent heavy losses. Also, high inflation