micro-entrepreneurs, and the provision of savings facilities and, in general, a better understanding of the role of credit in the development
process. In financial markets, private financial institutions are “guided,
rewarded, and disciplined by market forces”, financial activities follow
rather than lead economic opportunities and financial intermediation
enhances the efficiency of resource allocation between surplus and
deficit economic units and is primarily concerned with developing
durable relationships between financial intermediaries, depositors and
creditworthy borrowers (Adams, 1995).
The directed agricultural credit approach, long popular with development agencies and governments, rests on public interventions in
response to imperfections in both financial and non-financial markets
(centrally planned economies are extreme examples). As many small
farmers have no access to banking services, it is assumed that public
administered credit programmes will be able to overcome these market
failures. In addition, subsidies have been often used to seduce targeted
borrowers to engage in specific production enterprises and to compensate for low factor profitability of farm investments. The ease and speed
with which directed credit is disbursed and the ability to target clientele
and lending activities has further contributed to its popularity and use
as a development tool.
In directed credit programmes, specialized public banks commonly
onlend funds and/or enjoy access to central banks rediscount facilities,
for lending to target groups, and for financing the production of priority commodities. Seasonal credit constitutes an integral part of a package of recommended technologies and agricultural inputs, and has been
often administered by extension services, while loan repayments have
been linked with public marketing facilities.
The implicit intention of directed credit is to compensate for the effects
of adverse agricultural policies and restrictive interventions in agricultural marketing and pricing. Since many of the directed credit programmes were cast in a decidedly unfavourable market environment
(strongly negative agricultural terms of trade), they were preordained to
only modest success or straightforward failure, which led to their disfavour in subsequent decades. In recent years, in the overall context of
market liberalisation efforts, structural adjustment programmes and