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S7 Ep19: Can digital credit unlock investment in smallholder farms?
Episode 19
Wednesday, 15 April, 2026
At the start of every planting season, smallholder farmers needs seeds and fertiliser, but the income from the harvest that would pay for them is many months away. With no credit history and no collateral, banks aren’t going to give credit to farmers.They cope by selling livestock, pledging part of the harvest to a trader at a discount, or turning to neighbours.Can we do a better job of lending to farmers? Monica Lambon-Quayefio of the University of Ghana tells Tim Phillips about a digital lending product for farmers in southern Ghana shows what this approach can do — but also where it still falls short. Working with Farmerline, a social enterprise that scores creditworthiness from farm and sales data rather than formal records, the trial randomly assigned eligible applicants to receive input loans worth around $40. Farm input expenditures rose by around 11%. But not profits. Find out why in this week’s episode.The research behind this episode:Karlan, Dean, Monica Lambon-Quayefio, Utsav Manjeer, and Christopher Udry. 2026. "Access to Digital Credit for Smallholder Farmers: Experimental Evidence from Ghana." Journal of Development Economics 181.To cite this episode:Phillips, Tim, and Monica Lambon-Quayefio. 2026. "Can digital credit unlock investment in smallholder farms?" VoxDev Talk Assign this as extra listening: the citation above is formatted and ready for a reading list or VLE.About Monica Lambon-QuayefioMonica Lambon-Quayefio is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Ghana, where her research focuses on social protection, agricultural technology, and experimental methods in development economics. The paper discussed in this episode is co-authored with Dean Karlan, Utsav Manjeer, and Christopher Udry, all of Northwestern University.More VoxDev Talks on this topicMobile money in Ghana: Lessons for boosting financial inclusion: Tim Phillips speaks with Francis Annan about what Ghana's experience with mobile money reveals about reducing fraud and misconduct in rural financial systems, and what it takes for digital finance to reach the very poor.What have we learned about microfinance?: What decades of research have established, where the evidence remains contested, and what the most important open questions are for policymakers thinking about expanding access to credit in low-income settings.Related reading on VoxDevThe impact of digital credit in low-income countries: an overview of the evidence on how digital lending products affect borrowers, including the risks of overborrowing and the conditions under which short-term digital credit translates into improved economic outcomes.How to boost digital banking adoption and savings in Ghana: evidence on what drives uptake of digital financial services among low-income households in Ghana, and what works when trying to shift behaviour away from informal savings arrangements.
