International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management United Kingdom Vol. IV, Issue 12, December 2016 Licensed under Creative Common Page 406 http://ijecm.co.uk/ ISSN 2348 0386 CREDIT FROM TRADERS AND PROCESSORS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF SMALLHOLDER HORTICULTURAL AGRIPRENEURS IN KENYA James Maillu Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya jamesmaillu@gmail.com Elegwa Mukulu Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya elegwam@yahoo.com James Kahiri Kenyatta University, Kenya kahirinjeri@yahoo.com Abstract Increased need for appropriate credit in the agricultural industry has forced agripreneurs to explore ways to obtain credit with favorable terms to develop and grow their agribusinesses. The provision of sustainable and adequate financial services to resource-poor rural smallholder agripreneurs faces many challenges, including limited capacity of financial service providers in the rural areas. Lack of adequate credit from formal financial institutions has been prominently highlighted as one of the main factors that contribute to underperformance in the agricultural enterprise sector in Kenya. To mitigate this challenge, smallholder agripreneurs have had to explore ways of getting credit from the informal financial sector. This study used descriptive design method which endeavoured to investigate the significance of credit from traders and processors on the performance of the smallholder agripreneurs in terms of production, land expansion, job creation and amount of income realized. The study was guided by credit from traders and processors as the independent variable and performance of smallholder agripreneurs as the dependent variable. The study found out that credit from traders and