Looking at rural debt through the eyes of India’s farmers

Without insurance, farmers often rely on loans when a drought wipes out their crops. But credit access is a poor risk management strategy. By Emily Miller Twelve women stand in a row, ankle-deep in an irrigated field, submerging rice seedlings as quickly as they can. The work is meticulous. Paddy fields stretch for miles, broken up by palm trees and mango groves. Monsoons are coming soon, the farmers say. And hopes are high the rains will mean much better harvests than the droughts of the last two years.