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Pledging Oil Palms: A Case Study on Obtaining Rural Credit in Nigeria

The practice of borrowing money has always existed. Rarely do individuals, groups, communities, or even governments, have enough money to execute their needed programs or carry out their most urgent and important obligations. Financial difficulties, therefore, can and often do lead people to borrow money. Although facilities and sources for borrowing vary between developed and developing countries, it is universally accepted that both the borrower's and the lender's interests must be protected in the transaction. In most developed countries, the main sources of loans are financial institutions. Borrowers negotiate directly with these institutions with regard to both rates of interest and loan repayment. In the developing countries, however, financial institutions are very limited in their ability to provide lending services, especially to the rural people. Consequently, most developing countries have created other methods of borrowing. These methods vary from one country to another. As Herskovits observed (1965: 225-6), “The institution of credit is widely spread in non-literate societies, accompanies all types of exchanges, and is found in cultures of all degrees of economic complexity.” One method developed over the years in the Cross River State of Nigeria and, in fact, in most parts of Nigeria, has been pledging. Pledging involves the institutional transfer of the use rights of a piece of property from one individual to another in return for a sum of money. The individual who advances the credit enjoys usage rights of the pledged property until he receives his money back. The practice of pledging oil palm trees is as old as the society itself and continues today in spite of the recently promulgated Land Decree (Nigerian Federal Ministry of Information, 1978).