Revolving fund and land title deed redemption in the context of smallholder livelihood assets in Thailand | |
| Author | Ravivan Suwansin |
| Call Number | AIT Diss. no.AB-17-03 |
| Subject(s) | Revolving funds--Thailand--Finance Redemption--Thailand |
| Note | A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Agribusiness Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | This study assessed the performance of the Revolving Fund borrowing regarding the ability of debtors to retrieve their land title deeds in Central and Northeastern regions of Thailand, and also examined the factors influencing the outstanding debt and percentage of outstanding interest of the smallholders in the Central and Northeastern regions of Thailand. Primary data regarding perceptions of 430 debtors to the Revolving Fund were collected through questionnaire administration. The study area consisted of five Provinces from the two regions in Thailand i.e. two Provinces, namely, Nakhon Ratchasima and Khon Kaen are located in Northeastern region where there is scarcity of resources and infrastructure, whereas the other three Provinces, namely, Samut Songkhram, Nakhon Nayok, and Ang Thong are situated in Central region which has sufficient natural resources and infrastructure. Secondary data on loan repayment and performance of the Revolving Fund were solicited from the office of the Revolving Fund to augment the primary data and also in order to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the Fund. Three debtor categories: normal repayment, short term arrears and long term arrears were involved in this study. Descriptive statistics, student’s t-test, and Analysis of Variance tests were employed for the analysis. The empirical results revealed that the Revolving Fund is effective as the fund could provide loan to smallholder farmers and the poor to enable them redeem their land title deeds from their previous creditors. Heteroskedasticity-corrected ordinary least squares and tobit regression models were employed to examine the factors influencing the outstanding debt and percentage of outstanding interest of the smallholders. The empirical results revealed that the Revolving Fund is effective as the fund could provide loan to smallholders to enable them redeem their land title deeds from their previous creditors. The student’s t-test results revealed significant differences in the livelihood assets among debtors in the two regions. The Central region illustrates better livelihood situation which could be attributed to abundance of natural resources and infrastructures. Furthermore, One way Analysis of Variance of the livelihood asset scores among the three types debtors revealed that the livelihood indicator scores for the normal repayment group are significantly different from the others two groups. Therefore, it can be concluded that the ability of debtors to repay their loans depends on possession of livelihood assets. These results have implications for the management of the Revolving Fund. The results of the heteroskedasticity-corrected ordinary least squares regression revealed that marriage, low frequency of floods, and less influence of third parties significantly reduced the outstanding debts. The results of the censored tobit regression revealed that increased frequency of meeting with the Revolving Fund administration, less influence of third parties, high land potential, and interaction of age and experience significantly decreased the percentage of outstanding interest. It is imperative to intensify information and education regarding the regulations, payment terms and modalities to clients in order to facilitate repayments of the loans disbursed. The organization of the Revolving Fund should pay particular attention to the role of the committees involved information administration, and loan repayment monitoring. The Revolving Fund should increase the frequency of meetings with smallholders, minimize the influence of third parties, give priority to old and experienced smallholders who possess land with high potential. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examined the effectives of the Revolving Fund to enable smallholders retrieve their land title deeds. |
| Year | 2017 |
| Type | Dissertation |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development |
| Department | Department of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (Former title: Department of Food Agriculture, and BioResources (DFAB)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Agribusiness Management (AB) |
| Chairperson(s) | Kuwornu, John K. M. |
| Examination Committee(s) | Jourdain, Damien;Shivakoti, Ganesh P.;Datta, Avishek |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC), Thailand |
| Degree | Thesis (Ph.D.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2017 |