Doubling Of Farm Income A Bridge

The Tribune     16th September 2021     Save    
QEP Pocket Notes

Context: The project to double farmers’ income performance is nowhere close to the 35% rise in real income projected by the government’s panel for this period.

Issues in state of farm income: Insights from 77th Round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) on ‘Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India, 2019’

  • Increase in the amount of loan: Loan burden for an average farming family seen a jump from Rs.47,000 to over Rs 74,000.
    • Worrisome trend: The ‘better off’ the state or the farmer, the higher the pending loan.
  • Meagre growth in farmer’s income: Since 2013, average farm family income has gone up from Rs.6,442 to Rs.10,218.
    • Rural divide: These figures are less than what a domestic worker would earn in big cities.
  • Inequality in farm income distribution:
    • Big farmers with more than 10 acres of land earn nearly Rs.30,000 a month (not more than a Class-IV employee of the government).
    • The average family income of a median farmer who cultivates between 1 and 2.5 acres is much lower at Rs 8,571 per month.
  • Farm contribution to farmer family income is still lower:
    • ‘Agricultural household’ in the survey covers any rural family that earns some minimal amount from cultivation of crops or from animal husbandry. But not everyone in farming family is a farmer.
    • Average family makes just Rs 3,798 from growing crops of various kinds, Rs 1,582 from rearing animals, Rs 641 from business and Rs 4,063 from wages and salaries.
  • Farm profits calculations are over-valued: As the family’s own labour and other inputs are not counted towards the cost.
    • Also, the survey does not take into account the effects of inflation.
Conclusion: Even if we see this survey as a mid-term report card, as it covers the first three years of DFI, the performance is nowhere close to the 35 per cent increase in real income projected by the government’s committee on DFI for this period.
QEP Pocket Notes