Agrarian crisis in wheat-producing region of India: analysis of profitability and costs

Ankur Jain () and Neela Madhaba Sheekha ()
Additional contact information
Ankur Jain: Jawaharlal Nehru University
Neela Madhaba Sheekha: Jawaharlal Nehru University

Journal of Social and Economic Development, 2022, vol. 24, issue 2, No 5, 320-339

Abstract: Abstract The distress of the farming community has increased in the recent period due to the changes in climatic conditions and other vagaries of the monsoon. It has resulted in many farmers committing suicides and leaving farming as a profession as agriculture has become less profitable. Under this context, the present study examines the trends in profitability of wheat cultivation in major wheat-growing states of India. The crop failure and inability to pay the farm equipment loan are the chief culprits for the suicides. The verdict reveals that the number of times increases in cost C2 is higher than the number of times increase in value of production (VOP) of wheat in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan, whereas in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, the numbers of times increase in VOP are higher than the numbers of times increase in cost C2 and this happens in both agrarian crisis pre 1990s and agrarian crisis post 1990s period. There is intelligible relationship between wheat profitability and farmers committing suicides in all the selected states except Punjab where other socio-economic and psychological factors are important. There is an urgent need to increase public spending in agriculture and farmers should be given incentives for ensuring agriculture profitability to farmers as well as sustainability of food security in India besides removing the agrarian distress of crop failure and as well as realizing the goal of doubling of farmers' income.

Keywords: Agrarian crisis; Farmer’s suicides; Cost of cultivation; Wheat crop; Profitability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 Q02 Q10 R13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40847-022-00186-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jsecdv:v:24:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s40847-022-00186-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40847

DOI: 10.1007/s40847-022-00186-0

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Social and Economic Development is currently edited by M.G. Chandrakanth, D. Rajasekhar, Anand Inbanathan and S. Madheswaran

More articles in Journal of Social and Economic Development from Springer, Institute for Social and Economic Change
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().