Impacts of a Labeled Labor Loan on Female Farmers in Nigeria

The labor loan is part of a broader agricultural value chain financing credit called Sterling Women and Youth Agriculture Finance (SWAY-AgFin)” in Nigeria. The SWAY-AgFin was set up by Sterling Bank, a commercial bank in Nigeria, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation to ease access to affordable finance for smallholders and agribusinesses across the country’s agricultural value chains. The SWAY-AgFin credit finances farmers through aggregators, referred to as anchors, who work with farmers in clusters as groups or cooperatives. The anchors are also off-takers - they buy produce from farmers, and farmers are usually required to redeem credit with produce. The labor loan was funded by Sterling Bank and provided to farmers by the anchors, in the form of either a pre-paid card or a debit card. While the loan was described as a labor loan, the use of the money is not monitored. The loans were disbursed after the planting season but before the harvest.

2024-08-01

2024-11-30

Hired labor use on female recipient’s own plot(s)
Hired labor productivity on female recipient’s own plot(s)
Total labor use on female recipient’s own plot(s)
Input use on female recipient’s own plot(s)
Value of output per ha from female farmer’s plot
Crop income from female recipient’s own plot(s)

Mechanism outcomes:
Recipient’s time spent in: agricultural labor, domestic work, childcare, non-farm enterprise, leisure
Wages paid to hired labor
Child agricultural labor
Child school attendance

Wellbeing:
Non-farm enterprise profit
Index of consumption: Durables, Nondurables, Food, Health, Education, Leisure
Total income
Women’s empowerment index

Liquidity effects:
Hired labor use on other household plots
Hired labor productivity on other household plots
Crop income from other household plots
Household non-farm enterprise profits

Spillovers outside household (estimated on non-household members):
Wages paid to hired labor
Labor use
Crop income

The study is a clustered randomized controlled trial where SWAY-AgFin communities are randomized into treatment and control arms. We stratified 116 communities by LGAs and anchors, and randomized them into: (1) 58 communities with SWAY-AgFin in-kind input loan for both female and male farmers; and (2) 58 communities with SWAY-AgFin in-kind input loan for both female and male farmers plus farm labor loan for female farmers only. There is no baseline survey. We will collect two rounds of follow-up data. Round 1 will occur during the harvest, and Round 2 will occur 4 months after the harvest, once crop income has been realized. We will collect data from the female recipients of the loans. We will additionally collect data from male farmers in their household, and other male farmers in the community, to assess spillover effects.

Not available

The randomization was done in office by a computer and the treatment and control lists were provided to the anchors.

Community

Yes

116

1,555 female farmers 1,555 male farmers in their households 1,702 male farmers in the community

Control = 2232 individuals, 58 clusters
Treatment = 2580 individuals, 58 clusters