Credit provision is one of the principal components of rural development, which helps to attain rapid and sustainable growth of agriculture. Agricultural lending involves giving out of credit (in cash and kind) to small- scale farmers for the purpose of farming. There is no doubt about the crucial roles of credit in economic development. In spite of the importance of loan in agricultural production, its achievement and repayment are burdened with a number of problems especially in the small holder farming organized as cooperatives. Currently, there are different organizations involved in providing credit to beekeeping cooperatives of the Kilte- Awlaelo District. The organizations are trying to organize beekeeping cooperatives, promote both improved and traditional beekeeping practices by providing credit. The main objectives of these cooperatives are to improve the living standard and market access of the members and repay their credit on time. However, the cooperatives are unable to payback their credit according to the contract due to many factors. Therefore, this research aimed at analyzing and examining the determinants of loan repayment on beekeeping cooperatives. To meet this objective data was collected and multistage sampling and simple random sampling methods were employed to select sample beekeeping cooperatives and sample cooperative members. Besides, key informant interview and focus group discussion was held. Based on this a total of 170 respondents were included in the study. The analysis was made using descriptive statistics and logistic model using 15 variables. Based on the result of the analysis age, family size, annual income, livestock ownership, access to additional source of credit, loan size and supervisory visit were found significant to enhance loan repayment at P<0.10. However, sex of cooperative members (taking male as reference), and number of dependent are factors that significantly increase the probability of loan default at P<0.10 level of significance. Therefore, based on the results obtained in this study, it is recommended that credit institutions or lending agencies should look out for the demographic and socio-economic characteristics that significantly influence loan repayment before granting loans and advances to beekeeping cooperatives to reduce the incidence of loan defaults. Besides, effective supervision, training, lending appropriate amount of loan and promoting woman participation on beekeeping cooperative, so as loan default could be minimized.
Loan repayment, Multistage sampling, Focus group discussion, Logistic model
