Agricultural Financial Markets*

An understanding of the modern agricultural financial markets and the financial products and services that they offer is critical to the success of Indian agriculture —an important segment of the rural economy, which supports, directly or indirectly, over 60% of the country’s population.  Considering the fact that experts have identified India as having the most potential to leapfrog into a pre-eminent role in the global food supply chain in the coming decade/s, there is a lot of expectation from Indian agriculture.  To rise up to the challenge and meet the expectations, it has to organize and adopt appropriate systems and tools, and evolve quickly.  Only then it can develop to meet the increasing demand for more and better foods at affordable prices — an imperative in an ever-sophisticated consumer-driven market.  Successfully facing challenges in the competitive and highly organized international agricultural markets is not an easy task.  India has to improve its production, productivity, and market efficiencies.  It also means evolving modern financial markets.

The Agricultural Financial Markets (AFM) programme plans to provide an in-depth, comprehensive, and holistic view of existing and evolving financial markets.  Presently, elsewhere in the developed countries and a few developing economies, the participants in agricultural value chain have the option to choose from a number of modern efficient financial markets with a variety of financial products and services. The Indian farming sector also could benefit from access to some of the more sophisticated and structured financial products that have the potential to reduce cost of finance and improve profit margins.

AFM is a 3-month/100-hour certification programme, designed to equip the participants in agriculture supply chain in the areas of production, processing, consumption, marketing, and finance, with greater knowledge of the functioning of various asset markets and synergies of their harmonization.

* The programme will be launched soon.