Gujarat: 43% of farmer households are in debt

AHMEDABAD: Around 43% of the 39.31 lakh agricultural households in Gujarat are indebted, according to the Pocketbook of Agriculture Statistics 2017, published by the Union agriculture ministry. The pocketbook defines indebtedness as relating to all kind of outstanding loans, irrespective of the purpose for which they were taken.
The pocketbook states that Gujarat has 58.72 lakh rural households and 66.9% of these are engaged in agriculture.Of these 39.31 lakh rural agricultural households, 16.74 lakh households are indebted.
The report states that 34.94 lakh households took crop loans as well term loans, amounting to Rs 54,277 crore. Officials said that of this, Rs 20,412 crore is made up of term loans, borrowed by farmers for the purchase of tractors and farm equipment. Only 5.43 lakh households have taken term loans.
The share of crop loans in the total outstanding of farmers is around 62%. Of the 34.94 lakh household who have taken loans, 29.50 lakh households have taken crop loans, worth a total of Rs 33,864 crore.
However, officials said that the number of people taking crop loans rose from 22.49 lakh in 2014-15 to 34.94 lakh in 2016-17. This is an increase of 55%. The amount borrowed for crop loans rose from Rs 28,730 crore to Rs 33,864 crore in the same period.
The officials also pointed out that the number of farmers taking term loans increased by 40% from 2014-15 to 2016-17. Officials said that against 3.88 lakh farmers who took term loans that added up to Rs 10,597 crore in 2014-15, the value of term loans nearly doubled to Rs 20,412 crore in 2016-17.
One officer said that the increase in is due to various initiatives of the Gujarat government which have led more more farmers to borrow from banks, rather than from moneylenders, as was the case earlier.