Programme

PGP-FABM

Term

IV

Academic Year

2021-22

Course title

Agricultural Finance

Area

Centre for Management in Agriculture

Credits

1.00

Instructor(s)

Prof. Poornima Varma, Prof. Vidya Vemireddy

Course Description & Objectives

Introduction: Agriculture is the mainstay of the rural population and livelihoods (esp. for the poor) the world over. Financing of agriculture is an essential aspect towards fulfilling of various development and economic objectives of nations and international agglomerations. This course aims to provide the participants with an understanding of the institutional finance setting aiming for agricultural development, rural well-being and agribusiness ecosystem including start-ups. It also aims to give students tools to evaluate agri-businesses, understand financial nomenclature, new paradigms and future challenges/opportunities related to finance.  Objectives: The course will seek to develop an understanding of the agricultural finance environment, the major institutions involved, and the strategic financing issues. The course will discuss agricultural finance and its linkages to agricultural and general development, credit planning, direct and indirect agricultural credit, new generation sources of credit, risk management, savings and insurance. Besides giving an overview, the course also aims to expose students to valuating agri-businesses, use modelling techniques while working on real time cases and data. The course will also try to introduce new concepts as well as designing approaches and mechanics to the participants. The course will therefore take a generous mix of breadth and depth of finance issues in the agriculture domain. The participants are expected to be aware of the status and future challenges and also be versed with some mechanics of agriculture financing at the end of the course.

Pedagogy

The course will be taught through lecture, case discussions, exercises, guest lectures and project assignments. It will utilize cases, papers, teaching notes, and other reading materials. Substantial participant effort in reading and analysis of the reading materials before class is of great importance.