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The study aims to analyze the impact of market participation on small paddy farmers' income and consumption expenditure. The study also estimates various determinants affecting the market participation of smallholders. Further, the study computes the efficiency of different paddy marketing channels and identifies the determinants that impact the marketing channel selection of paddy growers in Eastern India.

The study used the propensity score matching (PSM) approach to measure the impact of market participation on farm income and per capita consumption. Further, the study employed Acharya and Aggarwal's composite index approach to estimate the marketing efficiency of various paddy marketing channels. Further, a multinomial logit model was used to determine the marketing channel selection constraints.

The outcomes indicate that market participation positively impacts farm income and consumption expenditure. Education, membership in farmers' organizations, price information and distance to the marketplace significantly affect farmers' market participation. The results show that the producer–retailer marketing channel is the most efficient compared to others. However, most paddy farmers sell paddy to farmgate collectors due to a lack of market information, vehicle ownership, storage system, and inability to take the risk of venturing out of the farmgate into markets.

The study uses primary data and captures only farmers' perspectives to measure the impact of market participation, marketing channel efficiency and determinants for market channel selection. The other stakeholder's perceptions can be included in future studies.

Rarely does any study identifies the efficiency of different marketing channels for paddy farmers in India and includes cognitive factors like risk perception and trust in buyers as constraints for market channel selection.

The study assesses the relationship between institutional credit access and farmer satisfaction using contextual mediating and moderating variables. This study identifies various socioeconomic, service features and service quality determinants impacting institutional credit access.

The authors used the stratified random sampling method and selected 512 farmers from 40 villages in Maharashtra, India. Initially, the study employed probit regression analysis to identify the credit adoption determinants. Subsequently, the relationship between institutional credit and farmer satisfaction is identified through moderated-mediation analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and Analysis of a Moment Structures (SPSS - AMOS model).

Probit model's results suggest that socioeconomic variables like education and bank distance; service quality variables like prompt service and employee behavior; and service characteristics variables like the interest rate, loan sanction time, repayment period, and documents for loan application significantly affect institutional credit adoption across the smallholders. Subsequently, the results of the moderating-mediation analysis show that working capital, perceived value and risk perception partially mediate the association between credit adoption and farmer satisfaction. The mediated effects are further moderated by farm advisory services and financial knowledge and skills.

The study is restricted in opportunity due to primary data, and it considers only farmers' perspectives to measure service quality and service features as constraints for institutional credit access.

The government, nongovernment organizations, civil societies and private institutions should provide sufficient financial knowledge and training to the farmers via extension services to utilize the borrowed capital effectively to bring economic welfare and mental satisfaction.

The existing literature rarely considered banking service quality and service features (demand side) variables as determinants of credit access. Further, the study brings novelty in examining how the capital management cognitive factors of the formal credit adopters influence the relationship between credit access and satisfaction.

It has become an ongoing debate whether Indian commodity futures markets can accommodate farmers. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Indian commodity futures markets help rationalize farmers’ price expectation. The study starts with questions on the efficiency and other roles of commodity futures markets.

From a sectoral standpoint and economic importance, the study considers pepper, coffee, and natural rubber (NR) futures and spot markets. The efficiency of futures markets, divergence/convergence and causality between futures and spot markets have been studied by employing co-integrations, error correction and causality models. The sample period of the data are taken from the inception of futures trading. These three commodities are also compared on the basis of trading at the futures markets vs spot markets.

Analysis shows that though pepper futures market is informationally efficient in price discovery, while coffee and NR spot markets do the process faster. Pepper and coffee futures and spot prices exhibit the convergence; NR shows a sign of divergence. Unidirectional causality from pepper futures to spot market is observed wherein the former was weakly exogenous to the latter and while, bidirectional causality is observed in coffee and rubber. Coffee spot appears weakly exogenous while this remains inconclusive in the case of NR.

The authors analyzed the futures markets in rationalizing the spot market price in three plantation crops in India. In order to make the study more generalizable, further research is warranted in other commodities including those prices of which are government regulated.

The paper is unique in terms of understanding the interaction or interrelationship between futures markets and spot markets and drawing inferences about the role of futures markets in price formation in plantation commodities like pepper, coffee and NR.