Understanding Sustenance of Small Farm Holders: A Study of Income Inequality among Farm Households in Indian Punjab

Rohit Saini, Manjeet Kaur, Randeep Singh, Kashish Arora, Gurlal Singh, Gurleen Kaur, Sukhdeep Singh, Arshdeep Singh () and Dalbeer Singh ()
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Rohit Saini: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Manjeet Kaur: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Randeep Singh: University Seed Farm, Ladhowal, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Kashish Arora: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Gurlal Singh: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Gurleen Kaur: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Sukhdeep Singh: Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India
Dalbeer Singh: Department of Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 20, 1-14

Abstract: The sustenance of marginal and small farm households is a pertinent question given that their number is on the rise in South-Asia. The study aims to assess their present socio-economic profile and the challenges faced in order to draw a roadmap of development for these underprivileged households. The study pertains to Indian Punjab and data from the Situation Assessment Survey of the 70th Round of NSSO are used. The concepts of economic surplus, occupational diversity, farm productivity and vertical and horizontal inequalities are used to achieve the objectives. This study reveals that marginal farm households faced food insecurity as they failed to meet consumption expenditure from the income earned. In fact, small farm households are left with an annual economic surplus of Rs 8890 per capita only, after meeting consumption needs. Income is unevenly distributed among farm households with a Gini coefficient of 0.48. The majority of the marginal and small farm households fall in lower-income quintiles and are occupationally more diversified than their larger counterparts. Horizontal inequalities are lower between the farm-size categories (0.14) than within farm-size categories (0.27). The Gini coefficient within each farm-size category is the highest among marginal farm households (0.50), followed by small farm households (0.45), highlighting their economic stress and tug-of-war survival. Further, the farm households belonging to socially lower castes falls only in the marginal farm-size category and represent the lowest income. Development must be sustainable and inclusive, hence, policies to develop marginal farmers’ centric farming systems and high value crops such as potato, cotton, sugarcane and oilseeds, providing high yielding livestock breeds, value addition through farmer-producer organizations, non-farm employment through MGNREGA, provision of institutional credit at subsidised rate of interest and quality health and education facilities in the public sector are recommended to uplift the affected households.

Keywords: consumption expenditure; economic stress; income inequality; caste system; credit availability; farm productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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