Determinants of farmers’ access to microcredit from cooperative societies in Ondo state, Nigeria

The study examined the determinants of farmers’ access to microcredit from cooperative societies in Ondo state. A multistage sampling technique was used to obtain data from 100 respondents. Primary data was collected for the purpose of the study. We used descriptive statistics and logit regression model to analyses the data collected. Result showed that the farmers were mostly male farmers (64%) while majority of the farmers had a mean age of 44.10 ± 14.70. It was also revealed that consumer cooperative society, producer cooperative society, marketing cooperative society, cooperative farming society and credit and thrift cooperative society were the major forms of cooperative used by the farmers. The result also shows that age, marital status, farm size, farming experience, credit from another source and number of years in the cooperative significantly influenced farmers’ access to microcredit from cooperative society. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 11(2): 103-107, Dec 2021

INDIKATOR KOLEKTIBILITAS KREDIT JOINT FINANCING MENGGUNAKAN OLS & LOGIT

This study aims to determine indicators that have a significant effect on debtor collectability. The number of sample data used is 102 joint financing debtors whose loans were realized in 2019, which consists of two groups of 51 debtors that have current and non-current collectability. The analytical method used is the ordinary least square method and the logit regression method, where the combination of the two analytical methods being used at once was not yet found in previous studies. The analysis result using ordinary least squares shows three (3) significant indicators that affect collectability, namely term of the loan, value of collateral and monthly liabilities, with a significance level of 0.05. Meanwhile, the binary logit analysis results in four (4) significant indicators, namely term of the loan, value of collateral and monthly liabilities with a significance level of 0.05 and level of job risk with a significance level of 0.10. The R-squared value in the ordinary least square is 41%, which means that the ten indicators in this study simultaneously affect the collectability variable, while 59% is influenced by other variables not included in this study. The analysis using the logit regression method shows an R-square value of 39% which can be said that the ten indicators altogether affect debtor collectability by 39%.

The Influence of Budget and Financial Control in Selected Government Parastatals in Nigeria

The study examined budget and financial control in selected government parastatals in Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted in the study. Primary data was obtained using a well-designed questionnaire. Data gathered in the study was analyzed using descriptive, correlation analysis, logit regression analysis and other post estimation tests. Findings obtained in the study indicated that budget preparation exerts insignificant positive impact on financial control in Nigerian government parastatals with coefficient estimate of .034178 (p=0.195> 0.05); budget implementation exerts insignificant positive impact on financial control of Nigerian government parastatals with coefficient estimate of .0082354 (p=0.750> 0.05) and budget monitoring and evacuation exert insignificant positive impact on financial control, with coefficient estimate of .0468773 (p=0.234> 0.05). Premise on these findings, the study concluded that financial control on the average tends to increase as government parastatals experience effectual budget performance, with more budget preparation, implementation and monitoring and evaluation as opposed to the usual neglect of budget after implementation. Hence, it was suggested that government should ensure improvement in budget design; government should ensure adequate budget monitoring procedure and government should ensure viable budget evaluation procedure.

A Simple Predictive Score to Distinguish between Disseminated Histoplasmosis and Tuberculosis in Patients with HIV

Disseminated histoplasmosis is a common differential diagnosis of tuberculosis in disease-endemic areas. We aimed to find a predictive score to orient clinicians towards disseminated histoplasmosis or tuberculosis when facing a non-specific infectious syndrome in patients with advanced HIV disease. We reanalyzed data from a retrospective study in Cayenne Hospital between January 1997–December 2008 comparing disseminated histoplasmosis and tuberculosis: 100 confirmed disseminated histoplasmosis cases and 88 confirmed tuberculosis cases were included. A simple logit regression model was constructed to predict whether a case was tuberculosis or disseminated histoplasmosis. From this model, a score may be obtained, where the natural logarithm of the probability of disseminated histoplasmosis/tuberculosis = +3.917962 × WHO performance score (1 if >2, 0 if ≤2) −1.624642 × Pulmonary presentation (1 yes, 0 no) +2.245819 × Adenopathies > 2 cm (1 yes, 0 no) −0.015898 × CD4 count − 0.001851 × ASAT − 0.000871 × Neutrophil count − 0.000018 × Platelet count + 6.053793. The area under the curve was 98.55%. The sensitivity of the model to distinguish between disseminated histoplasmosis and tuberculosis was 95% (95% CI = 88.7–98.3%), and the specificity was 93% (95% CI = 85.7.3–97.4%). In conclusion, we here present a clinical-biological predictive score, using simple variables available on admission, that seemed to perform very well to discriminate disseminated histoplasmosis from tuberculosis in French Guiana in well characterized patients.

Rethinking Westernization in Destination: Tourists’ Perception of a Touristic City

The impacts of westernization are increasing globally in the tourism entrepreneurship practices. Understanding it contributes to the growth and sustainability of the business even in local touristic cities. This paper aims to judge tourists’ perception of westernization about one of the most important touristic cities – Pokhara, Nepal. Purposive sampling was used to collect responses from 248 tourists in Pokhara, which included both open and closed-ended questionnaires. In order to understand the perception of tourists and check the determinants about the prevalence of westernization among tourists, the cross-sectional descriptive study has been used, and Logit Regression Model is applied. The study reveals that 78.22% of the respondents find westernization has influenced tourism entrepreneurship up to a certain extent in Pokhara. Similarly, a majority (89.11%) of tourists reveal that they expect and enjoy local culture than their own culture in tourism destinations, where 95.56% of the tourists suggest preserving the local culture for the sustainability of tourism business in Pokhara. Results from the Ordered Logistic model show that westernization, problems faced in destination, the similarity of destination as per their expectation and level of tourists’ existence at destination play significant roles in their preferences to visit touristic destinations. This study indicates that the first two reduce tourists’ preferences while the latter two stimulate their preferences to visit Pokhara, Nepal. Therefore, entrepreneurs in Pokhara should identify, conserve, encourage, and maintain local socio-cultural traditions to have long-term tourism prosperity and development.

Broadband Market Sizing in Brazil

The objective of this study is to predict the potential broadband market in Brazil. This is done by combining information from two national databases: the 2010 census and the 2015 PNAD (National Household Survey). The 2015 PNAD is used to estimate the probability of the household accessing internet by broadband technology, using a logit regression. The broadband market is predicted using the estimated model with the same covariates found in the 2010 census. The prediction indicated a potential market of 45 million households, an additional of 6 million households in relation to the current situation. The new size of the broadband market is estimated if there is a 10% increase in the average penetration of broadband services in the main metropolitan areas. In this scenario, the new market covers 50.7 million households.

Adoption and Profitability of the Purdue Improved Crop Storage Technology for Grain Storage in the South-Central Regions of Niger

Cowpea is a food security crop and a main source of income for farmers in Niger. However, postharvest storage remains a major challenge due to insect pest attacks. Since 2008, the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags were disseminated in Niger to reduce storage losses. This study was conducted to assess the adoption of the PICS technology in the Dosso, Maradi, and Zinder regions of Niger. We interviewed 600 households selected from villages that did and did not benefit from PICS extension activities. A logit regression model was used to assess the decision of farmers to adopt the PICS technology. The overall adoption of the PICS bags among farmers was 48.4%. PICS adoption was 69.7% in Dosso, 41.3% in Zinder, and 31.2% in Maradi. Farmers who attended PICS training were 5 times more likely to adopt the technology than those who did not. Variables that affected the adoption of the PICS technology included the region, participation in PICS training, and information source. Beyond cowpea, PICS bags were used to store a variety of crops including Bambara nuts, hibiscus seeds, peanuts, millet, and sorghum. Storing 100 kg of cowpea in a PICS bag generated a cash flow of $70.38 per respondent and a net return of $21.50. Revenues generated from sales of cowpea stored in PICS bags were mostly used for health expenditures and to purchase agricultural inputs. Results of this study demonstrate that pest management technologies such as PICS bags can also contribute to improving the livelihood of family farms.

Drivers of Individual Credit Risk of Retail Customers—A Case Study on the Example of the Polish Cooperative Banking Sector

The main aim of the research was to determine the key factors determining the level of credit risk of individual clients (clients in the form of natural persons, excluding companies) on the example of Polish cooperative banks according to the following features: transaction characteristics, socio-demographic characteristics of the customer, the customer’s financial situation, the customer’s history of cooperation with the cooperative bank where they applied for a loan, and the customer’s history of cooperation with other financial institutions. For the research gathered data from 1000 credit applications submitted by individual customers when applying for a credit in five different cooperative banks were used for the analyses. To assess the credit risk of retail clients we use logit regression models, and additionally, score cards were calculated. The results of the research indicate that among the factors with high predictive power there were the features characterizing the client’s history of cooperation with the cooperative bank, where they applied for a loan. It may mean that when assessing credit risk related to financing individual customers, cooperative banks due to their local character, have an advantage over other financial institutions.