Agriculture, Inclusive Growth and Financial Inclusion: An Interrelated Phenomenon

India is predominantly an agrarian economy as more than 70 percent of the rural population virtually relies on it for their livelihood. Growth tends to be more pro poor as it has the ability to harness the poor people¡¦s key assets i.e. land and labour. In the agricultural sector, the increase in productivity plays multidimensional roles. These include reducing poverty, increasing productive employment, stimulating growth in non-farm sectors through diversification and hence enabling the positive transformation of the economy. Despite the progress in agricultural production, large sections of the farmers are still trapped in abject poverty as the growth has not been all inclusive. In such a situation, rural financial institutions can play a crucial role in increasing the productivity of small farmers through the provision of credit and stimulates them towards income generating activities. Against this background, the main focus of this paper is to analyze the factors that promote the agricultural growth in recent scenario. This paper also investigates how agricultural growth can be linked to inclusive growth and the roles that rural finance can play in linking to agricultural growth with an inclusive growth.