PurposeThis work examines the impact of institutional agricultural credit on crop productivity of some major crops such as paddy, cotton, wheat and pulses for small and marginal farmers across various social groups.Design/methodology/approachThe cross-sectional field data on socio economic variables was collected from three Indian states from about 400 small and marginal farmers across various social groups using multi-stage stratified random and purposive sampling through a structured questionnaire by interviewing. The method of propensity score matching (PSM) was employed to calculate average treatment effect (ATE) and average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) by categorising sample farmers as treatment group and control group where crop productivity was considered as outcome variable and access to institutional credit was considered as treatment variable.FindingsThe PSM estimates reveal that ATE and ATET for all the selected crops are found to be significantly higher for the treated group vis-à-vis non-treated group suggesting that institutional agricultural credit has a statistically and significant positive impact on the crop productivity.Research limitations/implicationsSimilar study can be extended for more crops and across regions in India for a universal coverage.Originality/valueThe agricultural credit policy of India has been to increase the access and availability of institutional farm credit. This has led to in general increase in the flow of formal farm credit to agricultural sector. However, the impact of institutional credit and crop productivity especially for small and marginal farmers across social groups is not well recognized in India using field data. Accordingly, this field data study contributes to the existing research by providing fresh evidence from field across social groups for both kharif and rabi crops using recent survey data from small and marginal farmers which has important policy implications.

PurposeThis work aims to examine the access and disparity of institutional agricultural credit for small and marginal farmers across various social groups from three Indian states.Design/methodology/approachField data on socio economic variables were collected using multi-stage stratified random sampling and purposive sampling through a structured questionnaire by interviewing about 400 cross sectional small and marginal farmers belonging to various social groups such as general caste, other backward caste, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Disparity of agricultural credit across different social groups is assessed using measures such as credit access, credit adequacy ratio, credit gap and newly constructed Agriculture Credit Disparity Index (ACDI).FindingsThe credit access, credit access ratio and newly constructed ACDI suggest that, by and large, farmers belonging to socially advantaged groups have better access to institutional agricultural assistance than farmers belonging to socially disadvantaged groups.Practical implicationsThe agricultural credit policy of the government needs to incorporate measures to eliminate credit disparity primarily by correcting the poor socio-economic profile (especially lower asset ownership and higher illiteracy) of socially disadvantaged farmers compared to the farmers' counterparts.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the existing work by providing fresh evidence from the field across social groups for both kharif and rabi crops using recent survey data from small and marginal farmers which have important policy implications.