describe an average farm in India
Answers
98% of Indian farmers are living well below the poverty line. Little to no education, little to no scope to get out of the social rut that they are in, and little to no chance for a better life on their own. The other 2% are individual owners who have tens of acres (10 - 500 for a rough figure) and larger corporations you wouldn’t expect (such as Gopalan Enterprises and TVS group) who have kilometres upon kilometres of land under cultivation. We are only talking about the majority - the 98% here - as you asked for an average.
None of them own any land, the land is usually rented using money borrowed from private moneylenders, as banks do not easily give loans for people with no documents. So whenever the lender wants, he comes and harasses the farmer for the money, and the farmer has the choice of either paying it or committing suicide in fear of worse consequences - it’s not pretty. Land type is whatever they can get a hold of. They don’t know any better. Water, some are luckier than others. Most depend on rains, some have access to water (by access, I mean a number kilometres distance that has to be covered with a ridiculous quantity of water). Transportation - as they all sell to distributors and wholesalers, transportation from the distribution point is taken care of, but this comes at a massive cut in the price the farmer can sell at. What choice does he have though? He can’t afford to transport it himself.
Crops and difficulties - everything from grams and lentils to cottons and vegetables. Fruits, as they are borne on trees, are usually in the land of farmers who own their own land (the upper 10% in terms of income) as it is a long term investment that takes years to give returns. For example, a mango tree takes at least 3–4 years from cutting to start giving profitable yields. These, thereefore, are again outside the scope of the ‘average’ farmer. Difficulties - as most farmers are not educated, everything is a difficulty. Healthy plants do not have many problems. but if you don’t know how to keep your plants healthy, then you will run into problems. if you can’t afford the ideal solution for the problems, the problems escalate, and now you have already spent the money on whatever mediocre solution you could afford. fertilisers are of poor quality, and damage the soil over time, even more so if they are of poor quality, unlike countries like USA or parts of EU. Water and rainfall shortage is the biggest stick in the wheel. A shortage or major delay usually means a major loss. Since they are not educated, they do not know how to treat the soil and the plants to ensure that they are more efficient with whatever rainfall or water that they get. Cracked, hardened clay soil is the worst when there’s little rain, but farmers have no clue, because this is the only kind of soil they’ve seen in their life. the concepts of mulching and weeding are again, only up there for the top 10% as they’re the only ones who can afford it. the rest use cheap pesticides that harm the yield, quality and punctuality of the harvest.
financial details - the details are irrelevant. most do not make back what they put in, or they break even, and pray for better rains next year. again, they are uneducated, and their solution to any problem, according to them, lies in the temple. studies would suggest that this is not the case, but good luck convincing them.
uncertainties - will i be alive after this crop? what am i doing? what kind of life is this? i wish i could feed my children (all 10 of them, because i lack the awareness of things like family planning and protection). will water come tomorrow? by the time it’s time for harvest, will the price of onions be 10rs/kilo or 1?
the uncertainties don’t end.
I don’t mean to be morbid, it’s just the facts of the matter. farmers do not lead a pleasant life by any stretch of the imagination, but they lack the knowledge and the idea of breaking through societal chains to do anything about it, and unfortunately, the government makes vast claims, but does not really help too significantly.
Despite this, due to the sheer number of arable land under cultivation, and because in India we do not have to grow anywhere NEAR as much fodder for raising cattle like in other countries, we have enough crops for the population. but only those who can afford it. in america and EU and most countries, the amount of food and water that cattle raised for meat consume is far far far FAR more than the amount of meat that they yield. it’s just not a sustainable ratio. Cows drink and eat so much per day, and they all give a fraction of the weight of fodder they consume in meat. That is a story for later though.
Answer:
As much as 67 percent ofIndia's farmland is held by the marginal farmers with holdings below one hectare, against less than 1 percent in large holdings of 10 hectares and above, the latestAgriculture Census shows. "Theaverage size of the holding has been estimated as 1.15 hectare.