10. Financing un-organised agri-supply chain with respect to potato in West Bengal

The agri-supply chain on various agricultural commodities has been studied for a long time. However, the financing of this chain has not been discussed or studied. On the other hand, studies on financing the agri-supply chain have been conducted concerning organised sectors such as Amul, etc. Thus, in the unorganised sector, it has not been studied at all. But in the Indian economy, credit linked with marketing has been in existence for a long time. Where the wholesalers of input in rural areas finance all the inputs, such as seeds, fertilisers, plant protection chemicals, in the form of kind, with the assurance that all the output is to be sold to the wholesaler at a predetermined price, which is much below the market price. The farmers, having no other option at the village level, have to opt for such a type of input finance. The paper discusses the potato supply chain where the farmer takes all the different inputs required for cultivation from the input wholesaler, starting from potato seeds to inputs and agro-chemicals required for cultivation, with the assurance that the potato produce has to be sold to him. In case of potato cultivation, this type of financing is prevalent in West Bengal because the potato seeds are brought here and sold by them only from Punjab and North Indian states, where the crop is sown early and also harvested