. Competition with grant providers such as local municipalities, Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) - Eastern Cape, NGOs such as LIMA to acquire production outputs. . Competition with the Department of Agriculture's grant programme such as Siyakhula/Siyazondla. . The availability of social grants affects the number of small scale farmers who apply for loans. . Since MAFISA is a government intervention scheme; some farmers still refuse to repay their loans, seeing it as grant money. . The in-house credit life scheme that limits the age of an applicant to be no older than 65 years. At the time of application, this disqualified many small scale farmers who are still interested in obtaining loans to address the issue of food security. . Inadequate means to mitigate risks related to natural hazards such as drought, floods, hailstorm, fires, etc. . Lack of understanding by beneficiaries of land reform programme. For example, they do not understand that the MAFISA loan application process is not necessarily linked to these programmes. . Reduction in Reserve Bank interest rates affects the competitiveness of MAFISA interest rates. . High default rate.