India Rich Agriculture Poor Farmers: Income Policy for Farmers

Green Revolution strategy developed India???????????????s agriculture sector phenomenally from 1970 to 1990 and made India self sufficient in food grains and other agricultural commodities. The limitation of small size of the farms was made good by a package of inputs and small farmers of India competed well with developed countries. However, since 1990s and during the last five years farmers are facing the problem of decreasing income and many farmers have committed suicide during the last two years. The need has arisen for policy shift from farms ie production to farmers ie income. There is no concerted thinking on income policy for farmers unlike the developed countries. The book proposes to present design of income policy for farmers suiting India???????????????s over populated rural sector. The profile of the farms and the farmers is presented to understand the structure of the farm economy and type of farmers for whom the income policy is designed. It also looks into the present income level of the farmers and limitations of the data in this respect. Sheer number of farmers producing different commodities is so large that it is a complicated task to have a homogenous one track policy. The main limitation in India???????????????s agriculture to increase farmers income is small size of farm. The partnership farming through an incentive mechanism can bring small and large farmers together for commercial management of farms for increasing farmers income