Agricultural Finance for Smallholder Farmers: Rethinking Traditional Microfinance Risk and Cost Management Approaches

Even though traditional microfinance has successfully paved the way for offering financial services to low-income populations without traditional collateral, many microfinance institutions (MFIs) are still reluctant to move into rural areas and agricultural finance, due to the perceived high risks and costs. Daniela Röttger`s research demonstrates how MFIs can mitigate risks and costs of lending to smallholder farmers by using a combination of proven traditional microfinance mechanisms whil...