Improving the livelihoods of poor households and transitioning more women back to the labor force is a major challenge in South Asia. Self-employment promoted through women's groups has often been cited as a promising intervention towards this end. However, the evidence on the impact of such...

Indian agriculture is dominated by smallholders. With an average holding size of just 1.08 ha (in 2015- 16), and 86 percent of holdings being of less than 2 ha size, Indian agriculture produces sufficient food, feed, and fiber for India’s large population of 1.35 billion, and in addition...

Farmers in developing countries often lack access to timely and reliable information about modern technologies that are essential to improve agricultural productivity. The recent diffusion of mobile phones has the potential to overcome these barriers by making information available to those...

Rural indebtedness and dependence on private moneylenders is an age-old problem in India. For more than 100 years now, the Central Government and the Reserve Bank of India have been making efforts to enhance institutional credit in rural areas particularly to assist in agricultural operations....