Agricultural development banks (AgDBs), which are not viable, should either be closed, or transformed into self-reliant, sustainable financial intermediaries. Experience shows that reform is possible. Among the prominent cases are Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) and Bank for Agriculture and...

The issue of agricultural development banking discussed in this paper has a history to it. For a hundred years or more, until the middle of the 20th century, a small number of agricultural banks existed outside of Europe. During that period, 15.5% of the banks in the AgriBank-Stat inventory,...