Small farmers in India need urgent policy support, evidence from nine states suggests

CHENNAI: Small farmers in India are struggling to maintain a minimum standard of living today and they urgently need policy support, according to evidence collected from 17 villages in nine states of India, now published as a book titled “How Do Small Farmers Fare? Evidence from Village Studies.”
Edited by Madhura Swaminathan and Sandipan Baksi, the book was released by economist Yoginder Alagh at the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics (ISAE) conference at Umiam in Meghalaya on Thursday.
Terming the book a timely one in the context of the agrarian distress that has dominated public and political discourse, Alagh said the work of the foundation was in line with the tradition of village studies pioneered by the Indian Statistical Institute.
Giving an overview about the book, Madhura Swaminathan said the essays in the book examine the socio-economic characteristics of small farmers in relation to other strata of the rural population. There is evidence of low and inadequate incomes among small farmers, and also of inequalities within villages and across agro-ecological regions.
It points to a crisis of small farming, as small farmer households are unable to generate incomes to maintain a minimum standard of living.
In India, small farmers make up nearly half the total area under cultivation. While they account for a substantial rural population, they operate in a capitalist market economy where a small section of the population controls the bulk of the means of production.
The book makes a case for urgent public policy support to bring economies of scale to small farmers so as to ensure them a minimum standard of living.
Published by Tulika Books in association with FAS, the book is the fifth in the agrarian studies series edited by V K Ramachandran. The 12 chapters in this book cover a range of livelihood issues, including household incomes, labour use, crop productivity, costs and prices, fertiliser use, access to credit, education and amenities.