AGRICULTURAL CREDIT IN COSTA RICA: DIAGNOSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Although credit can be directed with sufficient facility toward some economic activities, the same cannot be said about agriculture, first because there are thousands of clients and secondly, most of them do not meet the requirements for obtaining a loan. Moreover, they do not know how to utilize credit and frequently they do not accept the general conditions that the credit institutions establish. Unfamiliarity with the sources of funds is another problem. Therefore, if credit does not accompany other complementary services, like technical assistance for example, the farmers present low modernization indexes, and productivity levels are not very different in relation to those who do not use credit. Given the importance that agricultural credit has for the Costa Rican economy and its role in the country's development, it is necessary to examine the agricultural credit situation with emphasis on the last eight years. For this reason the method of analysis employed in this study is descriptive and diagnostic