Search results

The paper identifies the influence of socio-economic factors and livelihood training in stimulating micro-entrepreneurship among women self-help group (SHG) members.

The study is based on a sample of 416 women SHG members drawn from all the four districts of Sikkim using cluster sampling procedure. A multivariate binary logistic model is used to find the impact of socio-economic factors, and a Poisson regression has been used to find the impact of training on fostering micro-entrepreneurship. The result is validated using a propensity score matching approach which corrects for the potential self-selection bias in the sample. Subsequently, a covariate adjustment estimator verifies the robustness of the approach.

The study finds that “size of landownership”, “amount of loan borrowed”, “member's age”, “number of earning and dependent members”, “number of years of SHG enrolment” as well as the “district to which the member belongs to” have a statistically significant influence on the graduation of SHG members to micro-entrepreneurs. Furthermore, it is found that members attending the livelihood training programmes had a significantly higher number of microenterprises.

The study differentiates itself by providing empirical evidence on how socio-economic factors and livelihood training stimulate micro-entrepreneurship among SHG women of Sikkim, which has so far remained unexplored. Moreover, advanced econometric method has been used to eliminate the possible self-selection bias involved with training participation and thereby provides reliable and robust results.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-01-2023-0070

Farmer producer organisations (FPOs) are considered as a strategy to improve the livelihoods of small farmers through economies of scale by providing collective strength to farmers for improved access to production technology, value-addition services, high-quality inputs and marketing services for improving their incomes. This study investigates the impact of FPO membership on organic farming household's income in Northeast India.

This study uses field survey data collected from all four districts of Sikkim. Primary data were obtained from a survey of 560 organic farming households, 280 of which are FPO members and the rest 280 are non-members. Propensity score matching (PSM) is used to estimate the impact of FPO membership on net returns, return on investment (ROI) and profit margin.

Results show that the FPO members had, on average, Rs. 7,254–8,133 higher annual net returns, 4.6–4.8% higher ROI and 8–8.4% higher profit margin than the non-members. The findings confirm that FPO membership has a positive and significant impact on net returns, return on investment and profit margin. Also, heterogeneity analysis indicates that FPO membership has larger positive impact on relatively bigger farmers and female-headed households.

As the study was based on a cross-sectional survey, the findings may be subjected to some limitations.

This study is based on a novel data set, collected specifically to examine the economic impact of FPO membership on organic farming in India.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-06-2023-0451

Government of India has launched FPOs to organise small and marginal farmers into farmer collectives called FPOs. These FPOs, through economies of scale, aim to provide better collective strength to farmers for better access to production technology, value-addition services, high-quality inputs and marketing services for improving their incomes. Recently, the government has launched a scheme for creation and promotion of 10,000 more FPOs in the country. Despite potential benefits of FPOs and encouragement from the Government, there are many farmers in India, particularly Sikkim, who do not join the FPOs. This study aims to identify the major determinants that motivate farmers to join FPOs.

Primary data for this study was collected during October, 2019–February, 2020 from 560 farm households in all four districts of Sikkim, India. The study used two-sample t-test and FPO participation probit model for determining the factors influencing a household's decision to participate in an FPO.

The results of this study illustrate that education, farming experience, farming as the primary occupation, size of landholding, access to Internet, distance to the nearest market, medium level of social participation, extension contact, transportation facility and plan to expand the scale of operation in future are the major explanatory variables that have statistically significant impact on the farm households' participation in FPOs.

This study was based on a cross-sectional survey. As a result, the findings may be subjected to some limitations though the study made all possible efforts to minimise the limitations.

This paper is based on or a novel data set, collected specifically to examine the determinants of membership in Sikkim, India that has not been studied before. Moreover, this study has identified the importance of information and awareness initiatives among the farmers as responsible for farmers' participation in FPOs. The findings of this study will have important implications and lessons to draw from for the Central Government's effort towards Formation and Promotion of 10,000 new FPOs, especially in the hilly states of India.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-04-2022-0216.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the non-monetary effect of credit access by providing an econometric framework which controls the problem of selection bias.

The study is conducted in Assam, India and uses a quasi-experiment design to gather primary data. The ordered probit model is used to evaluate the non-monetary impact of credit access. The paper uses a propensity score approach to check the robustness of the ordered probit model.

The study confirms the positive association of credit access to life satisfaction of borrowers. It is found that, in general, rural borrower’s life satisfaction is influenced by the ability and capacity to work, the value of physical assets of the borrowers as well as some other lenders’ and borrowers’ specific factors. But, the direction of causality of the factors influencing borrowers’ life satisfaction is remarkably different across credit sources.

The study argues to provide productive investment opportunities to semiformal and informal borrowers while improving their life satisfaction score. Although the results are adjusted for selection and survivorship biases, it is impossible with the available data to assess which non-income factors explain the findings, and therefore this limitation is left to future research.

The study contributes to the literature of rural credit by assessing the probable differences among formal, semiformal and informal credit sources with respect to non-monetary impacts.