A Decipherment of Loan Approval Intensity for smallholder Female farmers and Their Determinants by Microfinance Banks in South-East Nigeria

Microfinance banks in Nigeria have developed tremendously in the recent times. Despite the fact that it is
universally considered as an essential development tool for peasant farmers in breaking the vicious cycle
of poverty, the intensity of loan approvals for smallholder farmers remains an issue of debate for
Agricultural policy makers. This paper presents a methodological framework for measuring the
sampling procedures in the selection of 180 respondents for the study. Data collected were analysed using
the loan approval intensity model (LAI) and the the ordinary least square multiple regression model. The
results showed that the mean loan approval intensity for the female smallholder farmers is 48.9% which
suggests that for every 100 loan applications made by the smallholder female farmers, only forty-nine (49)
applications were approved and finally we observed from the results that farming experience, marital status,
years of schooling, proximity to microfinance banks, household size, interest amount, and annual income
are the significant determinants of loan approval intensity of female smallholder farmers.