Indebtedness in Cotton Cultivation: Issues and Impacts (A Case Study of Andhra Pradesh) Dr. Ankalam Balakrishna, Post Doctoral fellow, Ankalam Venkata Krishna, Ph.D Scholar Department of Economics, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Nagarjuna Nagar, Guntur, India Online published on 5 July, 2014. Abstract Cotton is one of the major commercial crops, which has been generating large proportion of employment opportunities in India since along time. Cotton provides gain full employment to more than sixty million people in the country who are engaged in its cultivation, trading, processing, manufacturing, fabricating and marketing. Since cotton cultivation needs high cash investments, farmers have to borrow money form different sources available to carry the agricultural activities. Farmers borrow money not only for the cultivation expenditure, but to meet their consumption expenditure and family needs. The living standards of rural people will be effected by the performance of cotton cultivation, which is matter of serious concern. There are many dimensions of the present agrarian crisis in India. The search for a solution therefore needs to be comprehensive by taking into consideration all the factors that contribute to the crisis. In this regard, the present study is proposed to explore the status of indebtedness and impact of indebtedness on cotton farmer in Andhra Pradesh Agriculture., with the following objectives. The study used Multi-stage stratified random sampling method to select the respondents from among the farm households. sample respondents were selected by following the systematic sampling method, using a random start. A detailed structured questionnaire was used to elicit the information from the farm households. From the above analysis, it is observed that almost all the farmers are properly utilizing the amount of loans, they have secured from various sources, that is to say for productive purpose only. Of course there are other needs also for them, which are unproductive and are obligatorily for which a considerable amounts have to be spent from the loan amounts. Once, marriage is the obligation of parents, on which they have to incur a notable sum of amount. However, it seems, the investment on this purpose by the parents from the loan amount, comparatively got decreased. But having obtained awareness on the importance of education and on the need for good health, farmers, who have no other sources of incomes are compelled to spend considerable amounts from loan on these purposes. Top Keywords Cotton, Indebtedness, credit, Institutional and non institutional, crisis. Top |