1.
The farmer Gopalrao has two hectares of farming land, in the village Khursapar.
Every year during harvesting season he engage 4 labours for a month. But this year
Many labors were jobless due to the famine. Hence they were ready to work on less
payment. Hence Gopalrao gave work to 6 labors but his expenses were same as last
year Rs. 1600 per day. So how much he paid last year per labor?
Answers
Answer:
India has enough food; does it have too many people working in agriculture? The pressure on land is an outcome of policy, which condemns most people to marginal farming. India needs a different set of solutions for agriculture and for those working the land.
India is an agricultural country. Agriculture is “only” ~16 % of GDP but the largest sector for employment. Officially farmers are only a few hundred million, but adding family members who help or occasionally farm, as also wage labourers, the number of farm workers is likely to be closer to half a billion people. But how many people would India need farming if it were as labour efficient as the US for growing crops? I am not suggesting it is possible, or even desirable (large, mechanised farms with massive chemical and water inputs) but as a thought exercise? Just four million people.
The US is extreme; with less than 2% of its population growing food sufficient for almost 2 billion people, but much of it is fed to animals. The US also focuses on many crops suitable for mechanisation, but even using metrics from many East Asian countries, with about 10% of the population in agriculture - as opposed to half the workforce for India - that is hundreds of millions of people who could shift to alternative options.
[T]oday’s agriculture policies fail to recognise how crop choices, input costs, and the supply chain are intertwined, perpetuating marginal farming.
Farmers tell me the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA or MGNREGA, formerly NREGA) has heightened the problem. In fact, Schedule I Clause 12 of NREGA (2005) states, “As far as practicable, a task funded under the Scheme shall be performed by using manual labour and not machines.” This highlights how MNREGA has really been about jobs, instead of output or productivity. But instead of slicing the pie, agriculture needs to focus on growing the pie. Adding employment into farms is unlikely to change yields much, and certainly will not increase revenues sufficiently to compensate for increased labour costs. One possibility is for MNREGA to coordinate with cropping cycles, to enable a more steady balance of opportunities (and labour supply). Not only are farm sizes in India very small, they are declining due to population growth and competition for land. Per National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) estimates the average size is some 1.2 hectares only, and the median is lower. Other estimates places indicate 70% of farmers operating below one hectare in size. In farming, size matters. On average, smaller holdings lose money, i.e., their household costs are higher than revenues, a chunk of which come from non-farming activities. The smallest farms are afloat since they do not pay for labour, relying entirely on the family, and they consume much of what they produce, influencing the choice of crops.
However, even if we doubled or tripled our output, would that double or triple farmer’s earnings? No, since a glut would reduce prices. I have met cutting edge farmers who use high-tech methods (importing their seeds from Israel and the Netherlands), whose per acre yields are 20 times the average. But their much higher yield does not even require additional labour – and much of what they need is for packaging, which is seasonal.
More than simple supply-demand equilibria, the agricultural sector has many distortions and dislocations, not just middlemen, but also a very poor supply-chain, with lack of cold storage and efficient transport. While not precisely known, India wastes some 20% of its fruits and vegetables, and highly perishable/seasonal ones (which are often worth much more in rupee terms) may lose more. As economist Ajit Ranade and others point out, a number of improvements are needed in terms of markets, flexibility, etc., allowing farmers to choose whom they sell to, at what terms, etc.
Importantly, farming revenues will not rise much even as India’s income rises. In fact, the ratio of total agriculture income to total population is relatively flat across countries regardless of per capita income. Rising GDP means growth of non-agricultural incomes. As Figure 1 below shows (in log scale), India is not very different from a number of advanced countries in absolute GDP coming from agriculture spread per capita. There is some room for growth, but far less than growth in GDP. This tells us farmer incomes normally rise only when there are fewer farmers.
Explanation:
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