Status of credit and marketing linkages among the farmers of Tamil Nadu

Though farmers are availing credit from institutional agencies, the role of marketing institutions in providing loans to farmers is very limited. The present study addresses the purpose of loans availed by the farmers especially whether loans availed are used for post harvest or processing or any other marketing activities. The study results revealed that around 22 percent of the farmers are availing credit facilities. Out of this only 26 per cent of them availed loan through market institution. Most of the farmers (76.12 per cent) had taken loan from institutional agencies and nearly 65 percent of the loan was medium term loan. None of the farmers availed loans through schemes like cold storage/godowns and processing. While more than 71 per cent of loan was utilized in productive activities in case of farmers. The overall percentage of debt repayment of all sample households was 42.05 per cent. Therefore the marketing institutions like regulated markets and other government agencies involved in schemes like infrastructure development like solar drying yards, cold storage facilities, godowns etc., have to play bigger role to prevent distress sale by the farmers and improving their repaying capacity.