Thesis, Undergraduate (B.S. Agribusiness Economics)-University of the Philippines, Mindanao

Global rice production is accounted to the country's production and Philippines is one of the largest rice producer in the world, on the contrary the country is also one of the biggest rice importers in the world. Poverty incidence in Mindanao especially on the rice farmers is high in which these farmers would have difficulties in accessing inputs for rice farming thus, hindering them from operating optimally. In order to address the poverty issue, the government introduced micro finance however farmers' access to credit is limited hence they would borrow from informal lenders who would often offer them guaranteed output purchase even if the prices are lower than the market price. Data Envelopment Analysis was used in order to measure the technical efficiency of the farmers and Multinomial Logit was employed to determine the factors affecting the decision of the farmers in choosing their buyers. Financed farmers showed to be more efficient than those who are not, the four types of buyers the farmers are more likely to sell their produce are municipal traders, barangay traders, miller/traders and wholesale/millers since these buyers are the ones who finances the farmers and offers a guaranteed purchase of the output.