Doubling Farmer's Income: Role of Institutional Credit in Crop Production

摘要

Doubling farmers' income in today's scenario is one of the most significant subject and becomes highly prioritized after the Hon'ble Prime Minister showed his vision for doubling the farmers income by 2022. The doubling farmers' income is not an easytask and government has to take comprehensive measures to achieve this. It is a herculean project but it can be achieve through efficient use of all factors of production. It can be achieved through intensive application of inputs and technology. For theuse of improved technology farmers require more and more capital resource agriculture credit is an important resource that can help to achieve this target. Therefore, the role of institutional credit plays a major factor in doubling the farmer income. The agricultural credit appears to be an essential input along with modern technology for doubling the farmer's income. The study has conducted in the Madhubani district of Bihar. The district is enlisted among the 100 "Agriculturally less developed and distress districts of India" on the bases of lower productivity of agriculture, lower credit-deposit ratio and lower proportion of urban to rural households by an 'Expert Group of Ministry of Finance' on 'Agricultural Indebtness'. The role of institutional agriculture credit was estimated by comparing the costs and returns in crop cultivation of loanee farmers in before and after institutional agriculture production credit use situation and paired t-test was used to test the significance of the difference in income before and after situation. Paddy, wheat, maize and potato crops were selected for the study, as these crops together accounted for more than 80 per cent of gross cropped area of the sample farmers. It was observed that the farmers were obtaining more output and realized the better price for their output conversely getting higher net income from cultivation of paddy, wheat, maize and potato in after credit use situation. It can be inferred that the institutional credit support extended to the farmers allowed them not only to use more inputs, but also substitute the inputs for one another. Further, credit enabled the farmers not only to obtain higher yields, but also fetch better price for their produce and higher net returns from the cropsgrown by them.