Land ownership has a strong link with agriculture production and data shows the agriculture sector of India is mostly dominated by small and marginal farmers in rural India who are the real cultivators mostly belonging to the socially marginalised sections. These farmers mostly cultivate their own land and also take up sharecropping. But unfortunately, most of the inputs subsidy policies such as land development, purchasing of agricultural appliances, seed, fertiliser, pesticide, low interest credit, insurance support, compensation against loss and damage, tax exemption over agricultural income, and many other benefits of the Government have been designed to help the rich farmers. The sale of agriculture produce by the small farmers mostly has been a major problem as they are deprived of right MSP and a host of other benefits available to rich farmers.
The Land and Livestock Holding Survey conducted in the 70th round of the National Sample Survey in the year 2013 reveals that the average size of land per household ownership holding was 0.592 hectares(ha) in rural India. The share of land owned by different social groups shows that it was 9.23 % for scheduled castes, 13.06% for Scheduled Tribes, 45.68% for other backward classes and 32.03% for others out of a total 92.369 million ha distributed among 20.06% SC households, 11.89 ST households, 44.82% OBC households and 23.23 others. It further says that the average area of land owned per household was 0.272 ha for SCs, 0.603 ha for OBCs, 0.650 ha for STs and 0.816 ha for others. Within the social groups, only 0.03 % of SCs and STs, 0.23% of OBCs and 0.55 % others have large holdings of more than 10 ha of land, whereas marginal and small holdings of all social groups together constitute 85% and medium and semi-medium constitute about 7% only. The highest proportion of households belong to the marginal and small holdings and the lowest proportion of 0.24 % of households belong to large holding, which is common across all social groups. The survey report says more STs are self-employed in agriculture in comparison to other social groups.The fact is in spite of land reform laws, land distribution and redistribution remain an unfinished task with the Government affecting a vast number of farmers.
With the increase in input costs and wage rates in non-agriculture sectors, it has been increasingly difficult for the small holding farmers to continue self –employment in agriculture. It has been reported that during the last few years, a majority of distressed farmers who committed suicide in Odisha were sharecroppers and small and marginal farmers. The self-help groups(SHG) which have emerged as new money lenders, are mostly exploiting the small and marginal farmers and sharecroppers, who have very limited access to formal credit institutions, with their high interest rates.
So, in the near future, it may not be economically viable to become self –employed in agriculture with a small holding. The increase in huge subsidies to the farmers will have wider ramificationsons in public spending and lead to an increase in direct tax burden on all sections of people. The continuation of a vast number of people in the traditional agriculture sector symbolizes the features of backward economy and subsistence living. It is a fact that the backwardness of Odisha and the marginalized sections' underdevelopment lie with overdependence on agriculture sector in the absence of inadequate development of non-agriculture sector such as manufacturing, industry, mining, tourism, communication, service, health, educatio, banking, finance,insurance etc which still remain underdeveloped. These sectors have a much wider scope of organised employment as well as a scope of self-employment. There must be a plan by the Government to shift the surplus labour in agriculture to industry and the service sector. But both sectors are not growing well to meet the demand .
The traditional agriculture system needs to be changed, especially its feudal character which is quite exploitative based on caste-based social hegemony in rural areas. Most of the land owning castes belong to the socially dominant groups, whereas the vast majority of agricultural labourers and sharecroppers, small and marginal farmers are from SC, ST and other backward communities. These sections of people are over represented in agriculture but very marginally represented in non-agriculture sectors. They continue to suffer in agriculture with low wages and without any social security.The agriculture sector has failed to provide employment throughout the year, which is a major cause of distress seasonal migration of agricultural labourers. The inhuman suffering and plight of migrant labourers is known to everyone, but nothing has been done yet to change their misery.
The so-called farmer movements never demands for increase in wages of agricultural labourers and for any kind of benefit for them to improve their social and economic condition and quality of life as they continue to live without homestead land and basic amenities for life such as housing and drinking water. Rather, many farmer leaders blame the increase in agriculture wages as a cause of agriculture distress in States such as Odisha. The majority of agricultural labourers belong to Dalit communities who are still untouchables in rural villages and deprived of human dignity and continue to face all kinds of social humiliations and atrocities in the hands of the land-owning dominant castes. The social prestige and human rights of Dalit agricultural labourers have never been an issue being addressed in the farmers movements.
It is expected that the farmers movement must be inclusive of the interests of all sections of people engaged in agriculture but not just for the benefit of rich farmers. It is also time to look into the future of the agriculture sector without self-glorification of farmers and increase agricultural productions with use of science and technology. Also, the Government must change its policy towards farmers by recognising the real farmers.