According to a study conducted by SBI research, incomes of farmers have doubled for certain crops in some states from 2017-18 to 2021-22.
The study found that the incomes of cotton and soybean farmers in Karnataka and Maharashtra, respectively, doubled over the study period while it increased by 1.3-1.7x for all other cases. While peanut farmers in Gujarat saw a 1.5x increase in income, wheat farmers in Rajasthan saw a 1.3x increase.
In order to achieve the government’s target to double farmers’ income by 2022-23, the government has announced a plethora of measures like an increase in MSP, crop insurance, focus on kisan credit card and soil health cards, boosting e-NAM and food parks, and roping in financial institutions for increasing the coverage of institutional credit.
Despite much hype and political patronage, farm loan waivers by states have failed to bring respite, sabotaging credit discipline in select geographies and making banks and financial institutions wary of further lending.
Only 50% of the eligible farmers have received the loan waiver amount since 2014 (as of March 2022), though in some of the states more than 90% of the farmers received the debt waiver amount.
