of movable assets such as machinery and animals incur a greater risk,
unless these items can be clearly identified, and are properly insured
against theft, fire and loss. In the absence of conventional types of collateral such as land, livestock and machinery, other forms of often supplementary collateral are sometimes accepted by banks, such as third
party guarantees, warehouse receipts and blocked savings. Without
secure loan collateral, it is expected that there will be a contraction in
the supply of bank credit and this will result in reduced access of small
farmer and rural clients to finance (Binswanger and McIntire, 1987).
In the informal credit market, where intimate client knowledge and,
often, inter-linked trade/credit arrangements exist, non-tradable assets
or collateral substitutes, such as reputation and credit worthiness, are
much more prominent. Group lending based on group control and joint
and several liability of group members, and group savings are suitable
forms of collateral substitutes. These are increasingly used by donors
and NGOs. It may be effective if groups are homogenous in their composition, interests and objectives and when problems of moral hazard
can be avoided. However, in many countries, groups of farmers do not
easily meet these criteria. In addition, also due to the long duration of
agricultural loans and high costs of group training, individual lending in
agricultural finance, in general, is much more widespread and might be
more appropriate than group lending. Moreover, successful experience
with group lending is chiefly for non-agricultural purposes.
Emerging successful microfinance institutions have built up their loan
portfolio following a modern “credit technology”. Modern credit technologies targeted at a resource poor clientele assign greater importance
to keeping risks in check (e.g. by maintaining loan amounts small and
of short duration) and to well designed repayment incentives. One of
the most powerful incentives to loan repayment is the prospect of access
to subsequent loans. Thus, the typical loan disbursed by these institutions is for a short term (4 - 12 months), and loan amounts start small
and grow slowly in accordance to a client’s repayment performance.
With regard to agricultural finance, such modern “credit technology”
may be suitable to livestock farming, where the cash-flow generated is
more continuous. However, this is not the case with crop production as
the extent to which new credit technology may be utilised is inversely
dependant upon the importance of crop sales on family income.