The numbers of large, medium and marginal farmers are on a steady decline across Odisha. And same is the case with cultivate land.
According to sources, while there are approximately 53 lakh farmers and sharecroppers in the State, the number of agriculture labourers is around 25 lakh.
As per Government estimates, there is 61.80 lakh hectare of cultivated land in the State, out of which farming was done on 54.56 lakh hectare in the year 2015.
If Minister of Agriculture Pradeep Kumar Maharathy's reply in the State Assembly’s recently-concluded session is taken into account, farming has not been done on around 20 lakh hectare of land.
As per the data from the last three agriculture censuses, the number of large, medium and marginal farmers has declined by 4.75 lakh.
There were only 13,375 large farmers in the year 2001-02. The number further went down to 5,574 in 2010-11. The number of large farmers fell by 7,801 in the previous agriculture census. The number is expected to go down further in the next census, said sources.
The State had 1,45,110 medium farmers and 5,00,531 half-medium peasants during the year 2000-01. But the numbers fell to 1,19,529 and 3,11,261, respectively, in the 2010-11 agriculture census.
A total of 11,13,599 lakh small farmers were registered in the State during the year 2001-02. But the number has reduced by 1. 95 lakh. Only, 9.18,647 lakh marginal peasants were recorded in 2010-11.
On the other hand, the number of nominal farmers has gone up during the period. While there were 22,94,520 nominal farmers in 2001-02, the number went up to 33.68,296 lakh in the 2010-11 agricultural census.
With the fall of the numbers of large, medium and marginal peasants due to several reasons, Odisha’s agriculture now completely depends on nominal farmers, sources said.
The number of sharecroppers is on the decline. There were around 8 lakh sharecroppers in the year 2000-01, but the number reduced to 5,72,985 in 2010-11. And the figure is expected to fall further in future.