The demographic, educational, economic, and social factors affecting the farm record-keeping activity of smallholder rice farmers in Pampanga, Philippines

• Main Authors: Go, Sharlynne Michelle C., Gosyco, Chawne Hannah G., Ng, Claire Danielle C., Tumang, Kyllah Nicollaine M.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: Rice farmers—Philippines—Pampanga—Finance, Personal; Financial literacy—Philippines—Pampanga; Agriculture—Accounting; Accounting; Behavioral Economics; Finance
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdb_acc/58
• Institution: De La Salle University

Rice is the top food crop produced in the Philippines, allowing it to be one of the top global rice producers - in which the role of smallholder rice farmers has been vital. Despite this, many Filipino farmers are still living at poverty levels. Certain factors keep them from attaining financial literacy that could increase the sustainability, productivity, and profitability of their farms. Hence, this study seeks to understand the demographic, social, economic, and educational factors that influence Filipino smallholder rice farmers in attaining an adequate level of farm record-keeping activity in terms of their skills, behaviors, and attitudes. A sample size of 85 was derived by using the random sampling method on the population of 107 active rice farmers in Macabebe, Pampanga. Alongside past literature, descriptive statistics and adjacent-category ordinal logistic regression were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data gathered through a guided survey. Out of the 14 identified predictors, 8 have a significant effect. The 5 predictors, which are age, farm size, market competition, experience of agricultural constraints, and positivity of perception, have a negative influence on farm record-keeping activity; and the remaining, which are sex, agricultural extension frequency, and access to finance, have a positive effect. The study has proposed recommendations to the following stakeholders: Filipino smallholder rice farmers, regulatory agencies, accounting professionals, policymaking bodies, NGOs, financial institutions, cooperatives, and future researchers.