AN ANALYSIS OF FARMERS ACCESS TO CREDIT, BORROWING BEHAVIOUR AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY IN GUNTUR DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH

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Date
2014
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ACHARYA N.G. RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, GUNTUR
Abstract
Indian Agriculture is predominantly characterised by small and marginal farmers, tenants, landless / agricultural labourers with the co-existence of institutional (formal) and non-institutional (informal) credit agencies. Small and marginal farmers are usually left out of the purview of formal credit and depend on private money lenders which obviously costs them heavily. The government virtually had no record of information on tenant holdings, number of tenant farmers etc., by which they are denied of several benefits from developmental programmes. In this context it would be of high use to investigate on the access to credit, borrowing behaviour and resource use efficiency of land owned farmers, semi- tenant farmers and tenant farmers to bring out certain policy changes in the present credit structure with the following specific objectives. 1. To assess the access to credit by land owned farmers, tenant farmers and semi-tenant farmers from different sources. 2. To identify the socio-economic factors affecting the borrowing behaviour of selected farmers. 3. To study the resource use efficiency of land owned farmers, tenant farmers and semi-tenant farmers. Multi-stage random sampling design was employed to select a representative sample of 120 farmers from six villages of three mandals in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. Primary data was collected through personal interview method with the help of pretested schedules from the respondents and the data was tabulated and analyzed. Secondary data was collected from Chief Name of the Author : G. MANI PRIYANKA Title of the Thesis : AN ANALYSIS OF FARMERS’ ACCESS TO CREDIT, BORROWING BEHAVIOUR AND RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY IN GUNTUR DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH Submitted for the award of : Master of Science in Agriculture Department : Agricultural Economics Major Advisor : Dr. Y. RADHA University : Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University Year of Submission : 2014 Planning Officer (CPO) of Guntur district. Statistical tools used in analysis were mean, percentages, cost concepts, Theil’s index, Discriminant analysis and Multiple Linear Regression. The detailed analysis revealed that land owned farmers and semi-tenant farmers were having more access to both institutional and non- institutional credit than the tenant farmers. Tenant farmers were having more access to noninstitutional credit compared to land owned farmers and semi-tenant farmers as they lack collateral to pledge in banks. Land, cost of cultivation and net returns showed positive and significant influence on borrowing behaviour of land owned farmers. Cost of cultivation and net returns showed positive and significant influence on borrowing behaviour of semi-tenant farmers while only land showed positive and significant influence on borrowing behaviour of tenant farmers. The discriminant functional analysis revealed that between the land owned farmers and semi-tenant farmers, institutional loan amount was the major discriminator (52.67 %) followed by operational costs (38.56 %); between the land owned farmers and tenant farmers institutional loan amount was the major discriminator (81.38 %) followed by operational costs (22.48 %); and between semi-tenant farmers and tenant farmers, operational costs was the major discriminator (54.71 %) followed by institutional loan amount (49.08 %). Factors influencing resource use efficiency of the farmers revealed that land and labour cost showing significant influence on gross returns of land owned farmers. Labour cost, borrowed capital and owned capital showed positive and significant influence on gross returns of semi- tenant farmers. Land, borrowed capital and owned capital showed positive and significant influence on gross returns of tenant farmers. Labour cost, borrowed capital and owned capital exhibited positive and significant influence on gross returns of the total sample farmers. As credit being positively significant for all the farmers and institutional finance emerged as the major discriminator, the same may be made available to all the farmers, irrespective of owning the land, to increase resource use efficiency.
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