Land productivity and employment in Indian agriculture

Agricultural growth is crucial to the Indian economy because it caters to the foodgrains need of growing population and provides raw materials to the various agro-based industries besides providing means of livelihood to the teeming population. It also provides the market for the industrial goods and therefore strengthens industrial sector. In this way agriculture plays a pivotal role in the economy. However, the growth potential in the agriculture sector has not been completely harnessed due to non-adaptation of area specific approach all over the country.

The present study is related to a region which is compact with respect to socio-economic conditions and technological changes. It is based on field data collected from the 265 operational holdings with respect to cost of cultivation, productivity, factors share, incomes and employment etc. In order to exploit the potentiality of these variables, an area specific approach was adopted because macro approach is not found to be effective in this context. The study unfolds the debate on the relationship between the size of land holding and agricultural productivity, employment of land holding and agricultural productivity, employment generation as well as disguised unemployment and critically examined them at micro level. Further, whether disparities of land holding create disparities in income has been studied, besides estimation of optimum size of operational holding.

Also, on the basis of the findings an area specific strategy of agricultural development consistent with higher employment growth has been evolved.