Agricultural credit in Latin America : persistent problems and potential promises

To achieve meaningful development rural credit policies and programs must be aimed at and designed for the vast majority of Latin America"s rural peoples -- peasants. The need for leap-frogging into highly technified modernity must be questioned in view of the scarcity of basic inputs, the nature of the problem and the complex credit needs of the campesinos. Group credit mechanisms deserve special attention as means to extend institutional credit inputs, possibly to reorganize minifundia and to mobilize the peasantry. Finally, as rural capital needs are great, emphasis must also be given to new methods and mechanisms to mobilize that capital within the agrarian sector itself.