Does Access to Microcredit Lead to Technology Adoption by Smallholder Farmers? Experimental Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

Agricultural productivity in many developing countries remains low owing mostly to the low adoption of readily available modern technologies such as modern seeds, chemical fertilisers and mechanized irrigation. To understand if relaxing credit constraints increases the adoption of agricultural technologies, we use results from a field experiment designed to estimate the effect of access to microcredit on agricultural technology adoption. We find mere offering of microcredit to smallholder farmers does not lead to the adoption of agricultural technologies. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence of a heterogeneous treatment effects: borrowers with medium-sized farms are 13.3 per cent more likely to adopt modern technologies. In addition, less-risk averse borrowers, and present-biased borrowers are 13.1 per cent and 12.3 per cent more likely to adopt modern technologies.