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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused unprecedented and ongoing public health, social, and economic crises that have created a "new normal" defined by a larger role for the state in addressing increases in poverty and inequality, persistent low employment, widespread business bankruptcies, and increasing inequality.

Small-farm credit is important in public programs of developing countries. It is supported to finance increased productivity through modernization and to replace the exploitive moneylender. However, expectations often exceed performance. Indian research suggests the discrepancy may be traced to failure to account for the needs of liquidity management. It suggests, too, that programs that are designed to account for liquidity management can lead to modernization and to improved viability of small farms as well.Small-farm families comprise about one-fifth of India's 547 million people. The demographic characteristics of India, the macro constraints associated with economic growth and development [ 121, and the limited land space of the country insure that in the foreseeable future India's small-farm population will remain a large percentage of total population generally and rural population in particular. The Fourth Five-Year Plan recognized that small-farm problems are persistent rather than transitory. The Plan provided Rs. 115 crores (A$76.79 million) specifically for small farmers and agricultural labourers, 4.21 per cent of the total outlay [14]. The Small-Farm Development Agencies (SFDA) Program is the first major public sector program designed specifically for small-farm development. The Program subsidizes 25 per cent of improved production inputs, and provides loans from the SFDA through co-operative credit institutions and commercial banks. SFDA is intended to benefit about two million small farmers, a small proportion indeed, relative to the total small-farm population of India.The basic problems of small farms in India are chronic low income and malnutrition. A vicious cycIe of poverty is generated by small land holdings, inadequate resource position and unfavourable tenurial status. Low production and consumption, low returns on savings, high cost indebtedness, and credit constraints have been reported as causes of restricted growth of small-farm firms [15, 231. A study by Gilpatrick reports empirical information on the differences in production, consumption, marketing and 6nancial characteristics of five groups of smalI farmers, classified by the criterion of adequacy of net income to meet customary standards of living [ 2 ] . Theoretical bases for these differences have been discussed by Long [18]