Hyderabad: The world-wide demand for agriculture products would be very high and India would play a dominant role in contributing to the global demand and supply in decades to come, Y V Reddy, Governor of Reserve Bank of India said.

Addressing a gathering during the convocation programme of the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) this evening, he said there has been a phenomenal increase in the food prices globally.

The global food price index had risen on an average by 10.5 per cent in 2006, 15.2 per cent in 2007 and 40.8 percent in the first four months compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. Reddy said RBI has taken several initiatives in recent years to improve the agricultural credit delivery mechanism.

However, some bottlenecks continue to affect the flow of credit to agriculture. To attain higher growth in agriculture, the major areas requiring attention in the financial sector are: spread of insurance against crop losses and facilities for meeting the needs of the rural economy, he said.

Newer forms of credit assessment and risk management systems also have to be put in place, besides upgrading skills, and ushering in changes in attitudes and mind-sets, Reddy said. Information technology (IT) has to be used to facilitate transformation in various processes of rural credit, he added.

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