-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support price) or too little. The question of future of Indian agriculture has been around for some time now since the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that include permitting private wholesale markets,...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Financial exclusion: 40.9 per cent of small, marginal farmers not covered by banks -George Mathew
-The Indian Express Despite so many initiatives and schemes aimed at financial inclusion, only 40.90 per cent of SMF could be covered by the scheduled commercial banks (SCBs), the report submitted by the RBI panel has said. The Reserve Bank of India’s Internal Working Group (IWG) to review agricultural credit — headed by Deputy Governor MK Jain — has raised several concerns on the farm front as lakhs of small and...
More »RBI panel questions efficacy of populists schemes for farmers, in favour of more structural changes -Atmadip Ray
-The Economic Times The group is also in favour of revising the sub-target for small and marginal farmers to 10% from the existing 8% of adjusted net bank credit with a roadmap of two years. KOLKATA: A Reserve Bank of India working group on agricultural credit has questioned the efficacy of populist measures such as debt waiver and interest subsidy on crop loans, while suggesting a slew of structural changes to boost...
More »Rediscovering development banks -R Nagaraj
-The Hindu The agenda to set up a development bank is a welcome initiative, but questions remain on its design Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s press conference on August 23, announcing a slew of measures to boost the economy and financial market sentiments, had an interesting idea. It was about setting up a development bank. Ms. Sitharaman said: “In order to improve access to long-term finance, it is proposed to establish an organisation to...
More »Scale Neutrality in Indian Agriculture -Srijit Mishra & Kaushiki Singh
-Working Paper No. 75, July 2019, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies, Bhubaneswar This study looks into four broad questions on smallholder agriculture, that is, the marginal and small farm sizes that constitute more than 85 per cent of the operational holdings in India. Are returns to smallholder agriculture sustainable? Is the smallholder agriculture efficient? Does the smallholder have access to formal sources of credit? Is credit provided by formal sources...
More »