-Frontline The problem in rural India is not one of too much credit to poor households that leads to debt waivers that damage bank balance sheets, but one of inadequate access to credit from formal sources. IF Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan is to be believed, efforts to help Indian farmers by providing them with cheap(er) credit and relieving them of an unsustainable debt burden only harms them in the...

-The Hans India It is official now. New data released by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) for 2013 show that the agrarian distress in rural India is continuing, and even intensifying for small and marginal farmers. In the last decade, there has been much talk on inclusive growth, revival of growth rates in agriculture, higher public investment in agriculture and the doubling of agricultural credit. Yet, the new data show...

-The Hindu Business Line Bearish price trends in the global market, poor rainfall took toll on farmers in 2014 Farmers in the country were hit by a double whammy in 2014. Even as poor monsoon affected kharif output, lower commodity prices, largely influenced by a bearish trend in the global market, aggravated the agrarian crisis this year. In addition, the uncertainty over the vagaries of nature, largely through frequent unseasonal rains, compounded...

Animals, which are used for food, fibre, labour etc. hold a special place in ensuring rural livelihoods. It has been found by the NSSO's 70th Round Report that among the agricultural households having less than 0.01 hectare land (which includes landless agricultural households too), a little above 1/5th reported livestock as their principal source of income whereas 56.4% depended on wage/ salaried employment. However, as the land size went up,...

-The Indian Express The Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of agricultural households, released last week by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), is the second one ever to be done. The SAS of 2003 was necessitated by the agrarian crisis of the time. Farmer suicides had reached a peak, and the reference year for the survey, 2002-2003, had seen severe drought. The agricultural sector was in crisis, with growth rates slowing to...