₹45 lakh crore in farm credit — sounds impressive, right? Like agriculture is booming. But pause and look closer: that number is almost equal to the total value of all agricultural output. So wait... are we growing food, or just growing debt? Debt has become the oxygen of farming!
Half of this debt is from formal channels, the rest from informal sources often at killer interest rates. If credit matches output, what’s left for income? Are farmers now simply rotating loans to survive, using new debt to pay old dues? This isn’t financial inclusion. It’s debt dependency. And it raises a chilling thought: is India’s farmer living off the land, or just living off loans?
If farming needs more credit than it creates value, we’re not sustaining agriculture; we’re mortgaging its future.
