Financial Inclusion and Farmers: Association between Status and Demographic Variables

Abstract

Financial inclusion is an excellent tool for empowerment of farmers. The current study examines the level of financial inclusion and study the association between various demographical variables and financial inclusion among the farmers. A survey of 360 farmers across Prayagraj district was conducted, this survey found that 71.4% of farmers had his bank accounts while 23.6% of farmers were actively using their bank accounts in past 3 months and only 10.6 % of farmers were taken loan from banks or other formal financial institutions. The survey shows that farmers were financially inclusion: as 72.8% have poor financial inclusion, 19.2% have fair financial inclusion, and only 8.1% have sound financial inclusion. The farmers had not sufficient financial literacy. Further analysis shows that gender is not associated with degree of financial inclusion while other demographic variables i.e. education qualification, family income, age group and size of landholding is closely associated with degree of financial inclusion.