Role of co-operative credit in small farmer adoption of the new cereal varieties in India

Cooperatives are also becoming the most important source of agricultural credit. However, the importance of cooperative credit in adoption is not universal and many aspects of this relationship are ill-defined. This paper examines four main questions to bring the issues more sharply into focus. (1) How important is cooperative credit relative to other factors in the adoption process? (2) Under what conditions, or at what state of the adoption process, does credit become a critical factor in adoption? (3) Why are small farmers dependent on cooperative credit for adoption rather than on credit from moneylenders or other traditional sources? (4) Are demand or supply constraints critical in expansion of cooperative credit to small farmers for adoption of new varieties?