The small effect of microcredit on incomes is not what the designers of the Fund had envisaged; instead they had expected that the VF would boost household-level income from non-traditional sources. It appears that the short-term nature of the VF loans makes them suitable for farmers – they allow for the financing of inputs during a crop cycle – and for consumer credit, but are not sufficiently long-term (or perhaps large) to be very useful for most of the other remunerative activities that households might initiate.