SIES-FPJ webinar: Agri finance is a struggle since Independence

MUMBAI: Rural distress is a reality. Figures after figures from Nabard and other organisations have confirmed this.

Adding to it is the burden on account of the COVID-19 Pandemic which finally persuaded the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to announce a financing facility worth Rs 1 lakh crore under the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.

This fund will be for agri-entrepreneurs, startups, agri-tech players and farmer groups for post-harvest management and nurturing farm assets. While this is a long-term plan which is crucial, there is a need to look at India’s short-term credit needs as well.

In order to give a perspective to longterm and short-term credit needs of the farming community, SIES and Free Press Journal in association with NSE, NCDEX Investor (Client) Protection Fund Trust, and East-West Seed is organising a webinar titled ‘Rural distress, the government doles and Agri finance’ on August 13, 2020, at 3 pm.

The panelists for the session are (in alphabetical order) Kavita Jha, AVP, NCDEX; Suhas Joshi, Head-Sustainability and Business Stewardship, Bayer South Asia; Arun Raste, Executive Director, NDDB; and P V S Suryakumar, Deputy Managing Director, NABARD. The session will be moderated by RN Bhaskar, Consulting Editor, Free Press Journal.

The causes of distress are many. Finance is one of them. Access to markets is another issue. The pernicious influence of doles is a third. The need for handholding to help him adopt technology in farming is a fourth. But access to finance is crucial. Most Indian farmers are largely dependent on money-lenders (non-institutional sources). The moneylender is also – quite often – the person who arranges to purchase the crop from the farmer. Unfortunately, teaching farmers not to repay loans, made banks wary of farmer borrowers. So it was back to the moneylender.