Agricultural Credit : Sources, Problems and Emerging Issues

Contents: Preface. Glossary : concepts and definitions. I. Agricultural credit in India: an introduction: 1. Historical background. 2. Emergence of co-operative societies. 3. Development of agricultural credit after independence. II. Agricultural credit : some studies: 1. Supply of credit across the categories of farmers. 2. Regional disparities. 3. Agricultural development and credit. 4. Cost and extent of credit. 5. Recent studies by the government institutions. III. Development of agriculture, co-operatives and commercial banks: 1. Importance of agriculture in economic structure. 2. Work-force and rural economy. 3. Sector-wise per worker income. 4. Changes in the agricultural production. 5. Inputs in agricultural production. 6. Development of institutional finance. IV. Institutional credit and overdues: i. Growth of institutional credit: 1. Distribution of institutional loans. 2. Determinants of institutional credit. 3. Composition of institutional credit. ii. Problem of overdues: 1. Extent of overdues. 2. Composition of overdues. 3. Composition of overdues by farm size. 4. Categories. V. General features of the case study: 1. Composition of rural population. 2. Structure of land holding. 3. Nature of assets. 4. Cropping pattern. VI. Sources and supply of credit: 1. Extent of credit. 2. Composition of loans. 3. Cost of credit. VII. Creditworthiness, production base, and overdues: 1. Supply of credit and creditworthiness. 2. Determinants of credit. 3. Concentration of credit among farm-strata. 4. Outstanding loans and overdues. 5. Factors associated with overdues. VIII. Emerging issues of agricultural credit. Bibliography. Index.

"Earlier, tall claims were made about the success of green revolution in India. But, at present, the peasantry is in crisis because of less remunerative nature of farming. As a result, the issue of indebtedness of the peasantry has raised many questions and it was focus of the recent debate after some reported suicide cases.

This book evaluates the nature and extent of rural credit along with the growth of agricultural production and the process of farm mechanisation. The growth of rural institutional credit across the peasant strata and the change in the pattern of distribution of this credit have been studied. Regarding supply of credit to different sections of farmers, the role of institutional vis-à-vis non-institutional sources and also the problem of overdues has been investigated. The causes determining the extent of credit, the determinants of overdues and in this context the economic position of different categories of farmers has been examined.

This book will certainly prove useful to the planners and policy makers and would guide the academics in general, and the researchers and students of economics." (jacket)

[Balwinder Singh is currently teaching and engaged in Research at Punjabi University Patiala, in the Department of Economics.]