Maize Productivity Enhancement through Credit Program of Zari Tarqiati Bank Limited in Rural Areas of District Mardan

Maize, for its easy and excess availability in the rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is considered a main staple food in low income households. Due to small scale farming in the province the maize growers are always in need of loan for the purchase of inputs. The present study examined the effect of ZTBL credit program on maize productivity in district Mardan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. For this, a sample of 226 farmers was selected by employing multi stage sampling technique. At first stage, all the three tehsils (i.e.; Mardan, Takht Bhai and Katlang) of the district were selected. At second stage, two villages from each tehsil were randomly selected. In third stage, all the beneficiaries of ZTBL credit program for maize crop was selected and interviewed. Descriptive statistics, paired t-test and correlation analysis were used to analyze the data. It was found, that ZTBL credit program has overall a positive effect on maize productivity in the study area. Majority of the credit beneficiaries were small scale farmers who obtained medium term credit followed by short term credit type. Thus, higher amount of credit was disbursed under the category of medium term followed by short term. The average yield, cost and return for the maize crop showed significant results due to the proper utilization of the credit by the farmers. The major constraints to farmers while obtaining credit were complicated procedure of pass book preparation, amount less than requirement, unavailability of timely credit and non-availability of collateral. The study recommends amount of loan according to the farmers’ requirements, bank staff cooperation and one window operation to address the problems of farmers while obtaining loan/credit from ZTBL. Such type of credit program ensuring proper utilization of credit should also be replicated to other districts of the province.