For farm distress, India needs more effective solutions than loan waivers

Those who want to help India's farmers should be working much harder to figure out what they really need

It’s election season in India and the money is flowing. Governments in many states have begun waiving tens of millions of dollars’ worth of loans to poor farmers in an effort to buy their loyalty. The argument – widely accepted by politicians and journalists, the demographic groups with the least fiscal instinct – is that India’s farmers are buckling under the weight of their debts and rural suicides are spiking dangerously. Rural households are desperate for relief.

The numbers tell a different story. And, given the detrimental impact on credit discipline, not to mention the hole such waivers are going to