A comparative study of borrowing and non-borrowing agricultural households in marginal size class in Nadia district of West Bengal

For conducting this study two villages from Haringhata and Chakdah blocks in Nadia district of West Bengal were selected purposively. Out of 122 marginal agricultural households 50 (fifty) were selected by the technique of Simple Random Sampling Without Replacement. Data were collected from sample agricultural households by survey method on size of operational holding, size of family, area of land under various crops, amount of credit taken from various sources and its uses, source wise income earned, etc. Objectives of the study were to find allocation of land to various crops by borrowing and non-borrowing agricultural households, to compare costs and returns in crop production, income earned from various sources in these two categories of agricultural households. The results of the study revealed that the agricultural households in borrowing category recorded higher percentages of land allocation than those in non-borrowing category for oilseeds, vegetables and fruits. On the other hand percentage areas under cereals, pulses, fibre crops, potato and spices were found to be higher in non-borrowing category than in borrowing category. Level of input use, gross return and net return were noted to be higher in non borrowing category than in borrowing category. Average annual level of income earned from various sources was higher in agricultural households in non-borrowing category than that of agricultural households in borrowing category. In spite of use of a portion of credit in crop production, level of input use was recorded to be lower in the category of borrowing households than in the category of non-borrowing households. Availability of higher amount of credit to the borrowing agricultural households could enable them in using inputs in larger quantity.