Abstract

Farm net income was used as a measure to investigate the effect of formal credit on the performance of the poultry industry. Forty credit and non-credit users each were selected purposively for the study. Regression model was employed for the analysis.Results showed that there was a significant difference (t-value of 0.012 at 5%) between the net income of large poultry farmers who used credit and those who did not. This means that large-scale poultry farmers are likely to perform better than small-scale farmers when credit is made available to both groups. Therefore it is recommended that formal financial institutions should focus on giving loans to large-scale poultry farmers while not neglecting the needs of small-scale farmers.

Key words: Credit, poultry industry, peri-urban, urban, Kumasi.