Economics, Business and Management: Recent Advances Vol. 5

Agricultural Cooperative Credit and Goat Marketing Performance in Nigeria

Zacharias Ternenge Nyiatagher — 2026-11-10

The study analysed the impact of agricultural cooperative society loans on goat marketing in Nigeria. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, analysed the impact of cooperative loans on goat marketing, examined the profitability and performance of goat marketing, analysed the effects of agricultural cooperatives on returns to goat marketing, and identified the major problems affecting the goat marketing business in the study area. A total of five hundred (500) well-structured questionnaires were administered to goat marketers in the study area, but only four hundred and sixty (460) were completed, returned, and used for the analysis. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, budgetary analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis. The results for the socio-economic characteristics revealed that the majority of the respondents were male (88.9%); the majority (58.5%) were aged 46–55 years, with an average age of 49 years; the majority (87.4%) were married; and most (52.4%) had household sizes of 6–10 persons, with an average household size of 7 persons. The majority (87.8%) had formal education, the majority (91.1%) were members of goat marketing associations, and most (52.2%) had 11–20 years of marketing experience, with an average goat marketing experience of 18 years. The reported impacts of agricultural cooperative loans on goat marketing were strategic selling (58.5%), increased market volume (52.4%), reduced distress sales (51.7%), improved transport and logistics (50.4%), and risk management (40.7%). Total revenue from goat marketing was ₦59,897,222.40, while total marketing cost was ₦43,470,568.40, representing 72.6% of total revenue. The marketing efficiency index for the goat marketers was 138%. This value is above 100%, signifying that the revenue generated from goat marketing was sufficient to offset all costs, with a substantial proportion remaining as a profit margin.

Net income was positively and significantly influenced by marital status, years of formal education, amount of loan borrowed, and membership of marketing associations, but was negatively and significantly influenced by the age of the goat marketers. Goat marketing in the study area faced problems, including insecurity, the cost of acquiring goats, high transportation costs, inadequate credit facilities, inadequate market facilities, inadequate market information, medication costs, and multiple charges. It is therefore recommended that goat marketers adopt cooperative aggregation, leverage localised livestock insurance, and transition towards centralised, digitally supported livestock hubs, thereby reducing individual risks.

Generative Artificial Intelligence in Agricultural Extension: Transforming Farmer Advisory Services, Knowledge Delivery and Decision Support

Manjeet Kaur — 2026-11-10

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), particularly large language models (LLMs), is entering agricultural extension at a point when conventional advisory systems already combine face-to-face support, mobile services, digital platforms, sensors and data-driven decision tools. This critical narrative review evaluates whether GenAI changes the capabilities, risks and institutional logic of extension rather than simply adding another communication channel. Literature was selected through live searches of multidisciplinary, agricultural, educational and biomedical scholarly sources, supplemented by citation searching and bibliographic verification. The synthesis focuses on farmer-facing and adviser-facing conversational systems, retrieval-augmented generation, localisation through expert feedback, multimodal and tool-using systems, and integrations with weather, sensor and geospatial data. Emerging studies show that LLMs can generate useful agronomic explanations, improve access to technical material and support rapid question answering, while domain grounding and human review can improve contextual relevance. Evidence is substantially weaker for sustained changes in farm decisions, productivity, profitability, resource efficiency, safety and distributional outcomes. Performance also varies with crop, location, question type, model version, prompt design, knowledge source and evaluator expertise. Consequently, benchmark accuracy or favourable expert ratings should not be treated as proof of effective extension. The principal challenge is to embed generative models within accountable advisory institutions that can verify sources, recognise uncertainty, protect farm data, escalate high-risk questions and preserve farmers' capacity to judge and adapt recommendations. The review proposes an evidence-to-action framework linking authoritative knowledge and live local data to grounded generation, safety controls, human mediation, farmer interaction and outcome monitoring. Future research should prioritise pragmatic comparative field trials, multilingual and low-literacy interfaces, reproducible model-version evaluation, safety endpoints, equity analysis, cost-effectiveness and governance. GenAI can expand the reach and responsiveness of agricultural advisory services, but its value depends on calibrated autonomy, contextual grounding and institutional responsibility rather than conversational fluency alone.

Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: A Critical Review of Literature

Tongpan Godwill Gu’ar — 2026-11-10

Retirement preparedness has become more dependent on individual decisions in pension systems where contribution choices, investment allocation, withdrawals and the management of longevity risk are increasingly consequential. Financial literacy is frequently proposed as a remedy, yet the literature does not establish that improving general financial knowledge necessarily produces sufficient retirement income. This critical narrative review examines the relationship between financial literacy and retirement preparedness, distinguishing knowledge from confidence, planning from execution, and accumulated assets from sustainable retirement resources. Peer-reviewed research and selected methodological and institutional evidence published from 2000 to 24 August 2026 were examined using a transparent, concept-led literature selection process. The synthesis brings together cross-country observational studies, longitudinal analyses, structural models, experimental evaluations and recent work on pension-specific and digital financial literacy. The most consistent finding is a positive association between financial knowledge and reported retirement planning, although estimates are sensitive to measurement, socioeconomic selection, pension institutions and identification strategies. Evidence that pension-specific knowledge predicts actual programme participation raises doubts about the adequacy of generic literacy measures. Experimental findings show that targeted information and decision architecture can change immediate saving behaviour, but impacts on sustained contributions and retirement income are less secure. Gender, employment informality, income volatility and digital exclusion constrain both opportunities to learn and the feasibility of acting on knowledge. The review proposes an outcome hierarchy separating understanding, planning, implementation and retirement adequacy, and identifies research designs capable of testing movement across these stages. Financial literacy is best understood as a potentially useful, context-dependent component of preparedness rather than a substitute for reliable pension coverage, adequate earnings or effective institutional design.

FinTech for Smallholder Agriculture: Digital Credit, Alternative Data and the Future of Rural Finance

Sanjiv Kumar — 2026-11-10

Financial technology is frequently presented as a solution to the information, transaction-cost and collateral constraints that limit smallholder farmers' access to formal finance. Yet evidence of widespread mobile-money adoption does not establish that digital finance is financing agricultural production, improving household welfare or allocating risk fairly. This critical narrative review examines how payment systems, digital lending, alternative-data credit scoring and digitally enabled agricultural risk management interact within rural financial markets. Peer-reviewed empirical and methodological literature published from 2007 to 24 August 2026 was considered, alongside influential earlier foundational work, through searches of accessible scholarly indexes and targeted citation and institutional-source checking. The synthesis distinguishes evidence on general-purpose mobile finance from evidence on agricultural borrowing and differentiates predictive credit-scoring performance from causal effects on farm outcomes. Research from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia indicates that mobile payments can lower transfer frictions and sometimes support input purchases and risk sharing, but farmers' use of digital loans for agricultural investment remains limited in important settings. A recent agricultural lending experiment finds increased investment without consistent average improvements in downstream outcomes, drawing attention to seasonal loan timing. Alternative data can improve repayment prediction in particular populations, although applications to farm borrowers face problems of incomplete digital traces, model drift, correlated weather shocks and potential discrimination. Short-duration loans, poorly disclosed fees and debt-collection practices can undermine the welfare case for digital access. The review proposes a risk-adjusted and rights-aware conception of rural financial inclusion in which loan maturity, farmer consent, data representativeness, risk-sharing arrangements and independently measured borrower outcomes matter as much as application speed. Future evaluation should compare alternative scoring systems and repayment schedules using prospective, seasonally matched designs, transparent welfare endpoints and explicit subgroup audits. Digital finance is a promising infrastructure for rural financial services, but it is not a substitute for agricultural contract design, credible consumer protection or rigorous causal evaluation.

Agripreneurship and the Future of Agricultural Extension: A Review of Digital Innovation, Business Incubation and Rural Enterprise Development

Sanjiv Kumar — 2026-11-10

Agricultural extension is increasingly expected to contribute not only to the diffusion of production knowledge but also to the creation, survival and responsible growth of rural enterprises. This critical narrative review examines the conditions under which agripreneurship can be integrated into extension through digital advisory systems, business incubation, entrepreneurial capability development and producer organisations. Peer-reviewed scholarship from agricultural innovation studies, development economics, entrepreneurship and digital agriculture was critically examined, with emphasis on the distinction between service uptake, changes in practices, venture performance and wider rural welfare. Evidence is comparatively strong that well-designed digital advice can improve information access, learning and selected agricultural decisions. Its effects on yields and profits are less consistent, and observational estimates cannot be interpreted as equivalent to randomised programme effects. Incubation and business training offer plausible mechanisms for reducing capability, coordination and network constraints, but agricultural incubator studies rarely establish long-term enterprise additionality against credible comparison groups. Farmer producer organisations can serve as shared enterprise and advisory infrastructure; their achievements remain contingent on governance, working capital and equitable participation. Across these domains, access to devices, land, finance, markets and social networks conditions who can benefit, particularly among women, poorer farmers and rural youth. The synthesis develops a conditional enterprise-brokerage interpretation of extension: public-interest advice, locally mediated digital tools and accountable venture support should be combined rather than treated as competing models. Future evaluation should prioritise longitudinal enterprise outcomes, programme cost and sustainability, platform governance, distributional effects and comparative testing of hybrid institutional arrangements. Agripreneurship may enlarge extension's contribution to rural development, but cannot be assumed to generate inclusive and durable enterprises without demonstrable additionality and safeguards.