Do Financial Constraints Matter in Accessing Agricultural Loan? Organic vs. Conventional Farmers.

Economic empowerment and sustainable livelihood of small and marginal farmers have become a major challenge in India. The NSS survey report indicated that around 40% of farmers are willing to quit farming and seek other means of economic survival. The ease of agricultural credit for the financially weak farmers can significantly help them to sustain. This study aims to understand the relationship between the financial position of organic and conventional farmers and their accessibility to agricultural loans. The primary data from 400 farmers has been collected from organic and convention farmers. To address the objectives, a Binomial logistic regression model has been used to examine the impact of financial position in accessing agricultural credit. The study revealed that educated, large-scale, and financially sound farmers benefited more from financial institutions, whereas economically deprived small and marginal farmers were unable to access agricultural credit due to illiteracy, lack of awareness, and lengthy documentation. The study suggests that generalization of loan waived should be avoided. Further, the required documents for availing agricultural credit for the economically weak and uneducated small and marginal farmers need to be simplified that could minimize the non-institutional sources of loan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]