How to finance rural prosperity

I ndia’s agricultural transformation is one of the greatest achievements of independent India. Over the past six decades, the nation has emerged as one of the world’s largest producers of cereals, milk, fruits, vegetables and fisheries products. This progress was driven by visionary public policy, scientific innovation, irrigation, institutional credit and the enterprise of millions of Indian farmers.

While India’s first agricultural transformation delivered food security, the next must deliver rural prosperity by enabling rural India to capture a larger share of the value created after harvest. Every agricultural commodity passes through a value chain from production to aggregation, storage, logistics, processing, branding and markets. It is along this chain that enterprises emerge, employment expands and prosperity grows. Financing this change requires moving past production credit towards financing the entire agricultural value chain.