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2007 3: 27International Journal of Rural ManagementAmrita Sharma

a Rural Youth Perception SurveyThe Changing Agricultural Demography of India: Evidence from

  

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THE CHANGING AGRICULTURAL DEMOGRAPHY

OF INDIA: EVIDENCE FROM A RURAL

YOUTH PERCEPTION SURVEY∗

Amrita Sharma

The demography of Indian agriculture is changing fast. There are clear signsof people fast moving out of agriculture, especially in the form of rural youthpracticing farming part-time and ageing of the farmer population in severalpockets of the country. Given the current growth performance of Indianeconomy, such changes in agriculture are only expected to intensify. Whatwould Indian agriculture look like in 2025/2050? Who will stay and who willmove on? In an attempt to answer these questions, this article takes a lookat one of the leading indicators and important demographic trends in Indianagriculture, that is, withdrawal of rural youth from farming, covering 14 loca-tions in 13 states across the country.

INTRODUCTION

In the coming years, one of the biggest challenges for Indian agriculture wouldbe retaining its youth in agriculture. Unless farming becomes both intellectuallystimulating and economically rewarding, it will be difficult to attract or retainrural youth in farming (Swaminathan 2001).

It is well-known that as economies mature, the percentage of people involvedin agriculture undergoes a significant decline. This is true for all countries; theonly difference lies in the rate at which the decline happens. For example, inlabour surplus economies like India, the withdrawal process from agriculture ismuch slower. A significant proportion of the population continues to be depend-ant on agriculture and, for a long time, the picture has more or less remained

International Journal of Rural Management, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

SAGE Publications � Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/SingaporeDOI: 10.1177/097300520700300102

28 AMRITA SHARMA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

constant (with a decline rate of less than 0.6 per cent per annum in the last50 years).1 Recent developments, however, call for attention. In 1999–2000 sev-eral parts of India experienced a decline in the absolute number of people farmingfor the first time (Economist 2001). If one goes by the current growth performanceof the economy, the fall is expected to only get steeper. This certainly marks aturning point in the history of Indian agriculture and one would not be mistakento claim that it could very well shape the face of country’s agriculture in theyears to come.

There are widespread speculations on the reasons behind the acceleratedwithdrawal. While growth in the economy has a contribution in creating a ‘pull’from outside, of greater significance appears to be the growing disenchantmentwith the profession. If the rising incidence of farmer suicides and the growingdebt burden on farmers are any indicator, agriculture seems to have lost its sheencompletely. Rather, it has become a legacy, which most want to get rid of. In aNational Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) survey (2005), more than 40 percent of farmers expressed their bitterness with the occupation saying that ifgiven a chance they would like to quit farming. Ridden with a high amount ofrisk, the profession is no less than a yearly gamble for farmers. As Dipankar Gupta(2005) rightly puts it: ‘The artisanal nature of agriculture in India has alwayskept the farmers on tenterhooks, not knowing how to manage their economy,except to play it by (y)ear’. In the last 50 years, the per capita income of farmersgrew annually by a meagre 1.02 per cent.2 To make it worse, in the absence ofadequate opportunities elsewhere there is overcrowding in the farm sector, mak-ing the size of the small pie even smaller. The old Indian adage—Uttam kheti,madhyam vyapar, kanishtha naukri (best is agriculture, medium business and lower-most service)—is totally reversed in today’s scenario. For any given youth, thelow incomes, high risk and insufficient gains compared to the effort requiredmake agriculture a very poor proposition.

Place of this study in the strategic analysesof India’s river interlinking programme

The river-linking proposal, which is kind of still in bay, claims to address thewater needs of India in 2050 and beyond. For it to be able to do so, it is importantto understand what shape Indian agriculture (as it is the largest user of water)would take in 2050. Human capital is one of the most important factors drivingchanges in structure of agriculture (technology, finances, institutions and soci-ology being the other four) (Boehlje 1992 cited in Gale 1994). If the agriculturalpopulation was to fall drastically, if the farms were to grow bigger as a result of

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

it (one of the many impacts it is likely to have) thereby impacting the resource-use efficiency of crop inputs (especially water, with better utilization of tube-well power in large farms), looking at the withdrawal of Indian farmer populationand its drivers becomes crucial to the analysis of the proposal. What will be theface of India’s agricultural demography in the years to come? What proportionof people will be gainfully employed in agriculture in the future? Who will moveon and who will be left behind? What will be the consequences of the gradualaging of the median Indian farmer? This article is an attempt towards understand-ing one of the most important demographic trends in Indian agriculture, that is,the movement of rural youth away from farming.

CHANGING AGRICULTURAL DEMOGRAPHY—AGRARIANCONSEQUENCES AND EXPERIENCES FROM DEVELOPED ECONOMIES

A fall in agricultural population is known to cause significant reorganization offarming—as economies move from subsistence to commercial farming, peasantsmove from maximizing output per unit of land to maximizing output per head(as there are more number of people to feed per farmer); farm size becomeslarger and the agricultural populace is dominated by large farmers; there is acutelabour shortage driving mechanization and finally, as the gap between farm andnon-farm income widens, governments intervene to restore parity (Bicanic 1972cited in Griggs 1982). An increased withdrawal of young and able-bodied men,who are generally the first ones to move out, also manifests itself in two ways:one, more women dominate the operations on farms; two, the farming popu-lation starts ageing. A cross-country analysis of trends in agricultural labour forceshowed that as economies move on from a stage with only a relative decline inagricultural population to one where the absolute numbers start stagnating, thegrowth in number of people farming is primarily driven by a rise in the numberof women farmers (Sharma 2006). A number of developed countries have gonethrough such changes during their transformation from predominantly agrarianto industrial (or service) economies (Griggs 1982).

For example, countries like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, which are similarto India with surplus labour and land scarcity, underwent significant decline inagricultural population in a very short span of around 15–20 years. The common-alities across all these economies during this period were high economic growthrates, rapid increases in economic activities in the non-agricultural sector andrise in real wages in the industrial sector. For example, in the case of Taiwan, be-tween 1953 and 1970, the economy grew at 7 per cent; industrial production

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increased eight-fold and there was a substantial increase in real wages (Speare1974). What is noteworthy is that with the absolute decline in farm labour force,there was a rise in total factor productivity (TFP) in the farm sector. This waslargely made possible by increased agricultural productivity (with increasedmechanization) and the success of land reforms, which made the benefits ofrising agricultural incomes spread evenly. Authors like Johnson (2000) haveemphasized that in order to keep the TFP high, in face of mass withdrawalfrom the farm, the nature of agriculture needs to change. In East Asian countries,the supply of available technologies prevented the inflexibility of labour supplyfrom constraining overall growth, even after the disappearance of labour surplus(Oshima 1986). There were also other avenues in which labour got adjusted.For example, West Malaysia, while mechanizing its rice farms, faced the prospectof roping in large segments of agricultural labour into huge rubber and palm oilsectors, which lacked technology to mechanize labour intensive rubber tappingand palm harvesting (ibid.).

If we look at the pattern of withdrawal across these economies, we find thatmigration was generally selective of the better educated. A number of studiesdone in Latin America identify education and urbanization as the key drivers ofgrowth in non-farm occupations (Reardon et al. 2001). Evidence from Taiwanalso suggests that the migrants were drawn disproportionately from young adults,the more educated, those working most recently in non-agricultural employmentand from the larger farms (Speare 1974).

OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY

This article tries to understand the changes in India’s agricultural demography,especially in case of Indian rural youth, capturing trends across regions, casteand landholding classes. The study is carried out across 14 locations covering13 states (Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Kashmir, Jharkhand, Orissa,Madhya Pradesh, two places in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Karnatakaand Haryana). The respondents included rural youth in the age group of 18–30years from the landholding class. In each of the locations, two villages wereselected—one close to a town and one further away—and 30 respondents wereinterviewed in each village. The research instruments used for the study includeda short questionnaire and focus group discussions with the youth. This articlepresents responses from 1,609 youth across the country.

A large portion of the sample came from the small and medium landholdingclass falling in the class of 0.4–4 ha. Most belonged either to the general or the‘other backward class’ (OBC) (33 per cent each) categories. If we look at the lit-eracy levels, most of them had education up to secondary level (37 per cent),

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

followed by primary education (32 per cent). Only 16 per cent of the youth

interviewed were illiterate and a negligible 1 per cent had professional educa-

tion from technical training institutions like Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).

Only a quarter of the youth interviewed possessed any kind of non-farm skills.

The most common skills found among the youth were driving, electrical and

mechanical repair work and masonry. A small percentage possessed knowledge

in computer applications as reported. This reflected the prevailing poor skill-

set of Indian rural youth, which is often cited as the biggest impediment to their

entry in the urban and better-paid labour force.

SCALE AND PATTERNS OF WITHDRAWAL:EVIDENCE FROM THE SURVEY

While migration from rural to urban areas is an age-old phenomenon, especially

in the case of youth, there are other developments in the countryside with wider

implications. In this section, we will discuss some of these evidences while trying

to fathom the magnitude of the withdrawal and to find who is moving out of

farming.

Part-time farming: The emerging trend

A phenomenon that came to the fore in the survey was the practice of ‘part-

time farming’3 adopted by a large proportion of youth across the country. A sig-

nificant percentage of youth (34 per cent) were found to undertake agricultural

operations as a part-time activity to assist their father or uncle, who bore the

chief responsibility of farming. The phenomenon was more pronounced in

villages close to towns where almost half of the youth (46 per cent) were either

working part-time in farms or were not involved in farming at all as shown in

Table 1.

Table 2 gives the degree of involvement of different landholding classes in

farming. It is noticeable that in the large landholding class, a larger percentage

Table 1

Proximity to Towns and Involvement in Farming

Location Full-time Farming Part-time Farming Non-involvement

Close to town 53 40 6

Far from town 62 29 9

Source: Primary survey 2005. Figures denote percentage from each category.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

of youth were found doing ‘full-time farming’. The high involvement of largefarmers in this case can be explained by the economies of scale achieved withlarge-size farms. Large landholding made farming viable for the household. Therewas no need for them to engage in other activities to support their livelihood.For most of these large landholders, the share of farm income in their total in-come was in the range of 85–100 per cent. ‘Part-time farming’ was more popularwith the small and medium landholding class.

Table 2Degree of Involvement in Farming of Different Landholding Categories

High Involvement Part-time Farming No Involvement

Overall 58.87 34.48 6.65< 0.4 ha 61.00 32.00 7.000.4–1 ha 54.83 37.78 7.391–4 ha 56.73 36.32 6.95> 4 ha 73.33 24.17 2.50

Source: Primary survey 2005. Figures denote percentage from each category.

Other evidences from the ground also suggest that the mobility of small andmarginal farmers is much higher compared to large farmers. In case of Gujarat,while small and marginal farmers move on to small jobs in neighbouring cities,they lease out their lands to large farmers, mostly Patels. This phenomenon ofreverse tenancy leads to an informal consolidation of landholdings where farmersgain from economies of scale. Other studies also hint toward similar trends.Singh (2006) in his work on the ‘future of contract farming in India’ presentedevidence on how more than 40 per cent of leasing-in of land was done by largelandholders across the country. Jodhka (2006), in his recent paper on the crisisin agriculture in Punjab, pointed out that the average size of farms in Punjabwas on the rise with a corresponding decline in the number of landholdings.The drop was most visible in the category of marginal landholdings (from 37.63per cent in 1970–71 to a mere 18.65 in 1995–96) followed by small landholdings.On the other hand, there was a rise in the number of medium and large land-holdings in the same period. The fact that the size of marginal and small land-holdings has remained constant for a long period also suggests that the farmersin this category are moving out of farming (Chandra 2006).

In the survey, we also found that a large number of smallholders’ leased-inland and their unit of operation was much larger (on an average 2.5 to 3 times)compared to their actual landholding. One can say that the non-viability ofsmallholder agriculture forces the farmers to either move out or increase thesize of their operational landholding.

The Changing Agricultural Demography of India 33

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

Some studies, however, show that the large farmers exhibit a greater propen-

sity to withdraw (Speare 1974). This is by virtue of access to good quality educa-

tion and capital, which helps them move to better occupations. Since the study

here captures the picture at one point of time, it is possible that the movement

of large farmers is not captured in entirety—the large farmers may have moved

out lock, stock and barrel. We say this because, in some of the surveyed villages

in Gujarat, we found several incidents of Patels selling their farms to relatives

and moving abroad. In Punjab also, Jodhka (2006) observed that while the average

landholding grew, the large farmers did not remain rural. While the smallholders

withdrew from the farms, the large landholders moved out of the village itself.

One may look at the relationship between the landholding of a farmer and the

shift away from farming as a U-shaped curve—farmers at both the ends of the

curve show a propensity towards withdrawal. Smallholders withdraw because

their farm size is not viable and large farmers withdraw because there are better

opportunities to avail. The medium farmers possibly tend to grow their landhold-

ing and consolidate their position as farmers.

The degree of involvement in farming was found to have a significant cor-

relation (correlation coefficient = 0.62) with the value of agricultural produc-

tion per capita in the region. Figure 1 gives the trend between the two variables.

Baramulla district in Kashmir, with a very low value of agricultural production

per capita, had the lowest percentage of youth farming full-time. As the value of

Figure 1

Relation between Value of Agricultural Production

per Capita and Involvement in Farming

Sources: Economic Intelligence Service 2000, Profile of Districts 2000 and Primary

survey 2005.

34 AMRITA SHARMA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

production increased, the involvement of youth increased proportionately. This

finding is corroborated by field evidences from Jharkhand, where interventions

from an NGO, PRADAN, in the form of high-value crop cultivation and intro-

duction of irrigation, revived the interest of youngsters of the village in farming

(personal communication with Jharkhand PRADAN officials). NSSO’s findings

(2005) about people wanting to quit farming also lend support to the ‘push

factor’ theory, that is, the growing disenchantment with the profession is a key

factor operating behind increased withdrawal or willingness to withdraw. The

survey revealed that a greater proportion of farmers in Bihar (51 per cent), Orissa

(47 per cent) and Jharkhand (47 per cent) expressed a desire to quit farming

given other option vis-à-vis other states, which were relatively better-off in terms

of economic performance.

Migration

NSSO (2001) data on migration suggests that migration out of rural areas is

rising. This data, however, does not cover seasonal migration, which is also said

to occur in significant proportions (Deshingkar and Start 2003; Haberfeld et al.

1999). In our study we found that 35 per cent of the youth migrated for work

outside their villages and most of this migration was seasonal. A large number

of youth (close to 30 per cent) commuted to nearby towns or villages. Most of

them worked as agricultural labour, construction workers and contractual workers

at agricultural produce markets (mandis), factories, bus stops and railway stations.

These jobs were low-paying and irregular in nature, offering meagre incomes.

Lack of skills and poor education acted as important deterrents for youth in

obtaining well-paying jobs in urban and semi-urban sectors. Still, migration

was a popular recourse to mitigate the risks of farming, as it helped to stabilize

the cash flows of the rural households.

Ageing of farmer population

Another change was in terms of the age of the farming population. It is expected

that as young men play a diminishing role in farming, the average age of the

farmer population would start increasing. To put it simply, the farmer population

would start ageing. Several pockets of India have started to experience an increase

in the median age of farmers. Analysis based on the household profiles of the

respondents showed that the average age of a person farming was 36 years com-

pared to the average age of 34 years of the overall sample. Though there is not

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

much difference at the aggregate level, the picture becomes clearer at a disag-gregate level. For example, in Baramulla district, Kashmir, the average age of aperson farming is 42 years. Kashmir is closely followed by central Orissa (41)and lower Assam (38). It needs to be mentioned that both in Baramulla andlower Assam, the aspiration for getting a government job kept youth from en-tering farming till later. In central Orissa, the high migration of youth is primarilyresponsible for the high average age of the farmer population. Interestingly, inseveral parts of the country, we found that farming was not valued as a professionby women too, and youth practicing only farming found it difficult to find brides.In popular opinion, this was an important factor driving youth to find jobs inother sectors.

Among the respondents, if we look at the age distribution of part-time farmers(and youth showing no involvement) vis-à-vis the full-time farmers, we findthat the age distribution of full-time farmers was skewed towards higher age(Figure 2). Comparatively, the part-time farmers and youth showing no involve-ment in farming were younger and had a mean age of 24.4 years.

Figure 2

Age Distribution of Part-time and High Involvement Farmers

Source: Primary survey 2005.

Farming was popularly considered to be an old man’s job in the villages. In alarge number of cases, management of farms was done by the father or uncle ofthe respondent. Among the youth, 55 per cent said that their farms were primarilymanaged by their fathers (while the youth contributed labour on farm), 11 percent said that farms were completely operated by their fathers and for the rest,their male relatives, sharecroppers or wives took care of the farm.

36 AMRITA SHARMA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

Characteristics of a part-time farming youth

Who are the people who will be the first to move out of farming and who will

stay on? For this analysis we compared the part-time farmers (including youth

showing no involvement in farming) with full-time farmers. The assumption

here was that people who are more involved in non-farm activities are more

likely to move out first.4 The part-time (and youth showing no involvement)

farmers were generally found to be better educated with more years of schooling.

Figure 3 shows that the part-time farmers (and youth showing no involvement

in farming) have a higher proportion of people with college education. So, the

observation made in other countries (Speare 1974) that migration is selective of

the better educated is validated here as well.

Figure 3

Difference in Education

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Source: Primary survey 2005.

Part-time farmers (and youth showing no involvement) were also found to be

more skilled (35 per cent had non-farm skills) compared to the full-time farmers

(18 per cent with non-farm skills). This could be attributed to greater exposure

to the outside world for the part-time farmers. This group also commanded

better jobs outside villages by virtue of more years of schooling or larger skill set.

There was also a distinct difference across social groups in terms of involve-

ment in farming. The Scheduled Caste (SC), Backward Caste (BC) and OBC

population showed greater involvement in farming. Almost 60 per cent of the

full-time farmers came from the SC/BC/OBC population. The part-time farmers

and youth with no involvement in farming were increasingly from the general

category, which is largely comprised of the upper caste population. Findings from

village studies in south India also lend support to the growing dominance of

The Changing Agricultural Demography of India 37

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

lower castes in farming. Based on in-depth village studies in south India, Raoand Nair (2003) conclude that in Andhra Pradesh the landownership patternamong caste groups has undergone a significant change such that while thedominant caste has lost land, the BCs and SCs have gained. In Bihar, during thegroup discussions, we found that the traditional farming castes like Bhumihars

were selling land and land was increasingly being acquired by BCs such as Yadavs.

Figure 4

Difference Across Social Groups

Source: Primary survey 2005.

Summarizing the observations made here, one can say that part-time farmersand youth not involved in farming are generally from the higher castes; have ahigher number of years of schooling, and are more skilled. These youth are alsogenerally from villages close to urban areas, indicating the impact that urbaniza-tion has on the de-agrarianization of communities.

INDIAN FARMER: ‘BETWIXT AND BETWEEN’

Is ‘part-time farming’ merely a stop-gap arrangement, where youth keep ex-ploring other opportunities while clinging on to their roots, or is it the wayfarming will be carried out in the future? When asked what they planned to dowith their land, a number of youth gave some revealing answers. More than60 per cent answered that while withdrawal was high on their agenda, sellingland was the last thing they would like to do. One may attach economic logic toit by saying that land for farmers serves as insurance and provides them themuch-needed security. There are, however, deeper associations which one may

38 AMRITA SHARMA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

fail to appreciate unless one looks deep into the rural psyche. For a number ofyouth, farming was still a mark of their identity—their forefather’s profession.Interestingly, 34 per cent of the young respondents answered that they wouldlike their children to do farming not only because there was a lack of opportunitieselsewhere but because that is what they had done for generations. Call it inertia,a kind of laid-backness or compulsion, the status of an Indian farmer is that of‘betwixt and between’, where on one side the fading charm of agriculture driveshim out of farming while on the other the lack of opportunities outside farming,poor skill sets and a lack of capital are compounded by a host of cultural reasonsthat make him stay on.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

What will the face of Indian agriculture be in the future? We started with thestatement that falling agricultural populations have a far-reaching impact on thenature and organization of farming. India, which is in a phase of major economictransition, is experiencing significant changes in its agricultural demography.Therefore, it makes great sense to look at these changes, striking and subtle, topredict what Indian agriculture will look like in 2025/2050.

There is a good amount of evidence showing the rising trend in withdrawalamong youth from farming. If we speak of regions, the trend is stronger in re-gions with low value of agricultural production per capita and in villages closeto towns. At the individual or household level, the trend is stronger among highercaste, better educated and youth with non-farm skills. Interestingly, both thesmall and marginal landholding class and the large landholding class show atrend towards withdrawal. While the small and marginal farmers are largelybeing pushed out of farming, the big farmers are moving to tap better oppor-tunities outside the farm sector being better off in terms of education and otherresources such as capital.

How these trends will manifest themselves in changing the nature of farmingis not known fully. We will, however, make some speculations in this regardwith the help of the qualitative insights gathered from the field and our findings.First, if the withdrawal was to take place dominantly in the case of small andmarginal farmers, as is revealed in the survey and several other studies citedearlier, the size of land operated by a single farmer would subsequently rise.This will have a far-reaching impact on the economies of Indian farms, changingits face completely. Second, if it is regions with low agricultural production percapita that show greater signs of withdrawal, the withdrawal process will ultim-

ately be liberating for agriculture in those regions. The pressure on land in such

areas would reduce making farming a profitable enterprise for the remaining in

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

the long run. However, in the immediate future, withdrawal of smallholders and

people from these economically backward regions will cause greater casualization

and pauperization of labour as they get thrown out of farming and fail to be

gainfully absorbed in the urban labour force. This puts a demand for public

facilitation of the withdrawal process. The study revealed that most of these

youth, because of poor skills and less education, work under extremely exploit-

ative contracts, which increases their penury. In the past, government had schemes

like Training Rural Youth for Self-Employment (TRYSEM) but now they are

more or less dysfunctional. A renewed emphasis on such schemes is required

and greater investment is needed in enhancing the education levels and skills of

youth.

Third, if the young people withdrew faster, which is actually the case, the

farmer population will age and we will have either old men or women who are

leftbehind dominating the agricultural labour force. How will this impact farm-

ing? One may get some leads from the highly feminized states like Uttaranchal,

where high male migration has caused a large number of women to take to

farming. If the sex and age of Indian farmers were to change considerably, it

would certainly need extension agencies, technology providers, and input agen-

cies to take cognizance and make farming more convenient and women-friendly.

Fourth, as the withdrawal process intensifies, mechanization would follow in a

large way as it did in economies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (which

were mechanized in a short period of 15–20 years). This would further change

the nature of Indian farming radically.

How long this will take to happen is still unknown. Given the disparity in

levels of agricultural development across states, probably states like Punjab and

Tamil Nadu (which have already started experiencing second generation prob-

lems of agriculture) will face these changes in next 10 years or so. The process

perhaps will also be intensified in regions with a high pace of urbanization,

greater infrastructure development in terms of better roads, cheaper transport

and superior connectivity and the ones with greater opportunities in the non-

farm sector such as Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

Amrita Sharma is a consultant at the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme at Anand, Gujarat.E-mail: a.sharma31@gmail.com

Notes

∗ This research was carried out with the generous support of Sir Ratan Tata Trust under

the IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme. The author would like to thank all the field

40 AMRITA SHARMA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RURAL MANAGEMENT, 3(1), 2007: 27–41

partners for their participation in designing of the research instrument and data collec-

tion. The author is also grateful to Dr Sanjiv Phansalkar and Dr Tushaar Shah for

their guidance throughout the study.

1. Data source: www.faostat.com.

2. We calculated the per capita income across the years by dividing the agricultural GDP

at 1993–94 prices by the total agricultural population (data source- www.indiastat.com

and www.faostat.com).

3. During our survey we found that youth had varying degree of involvement in farm-

ing. In order to understand their role in farming better, we graded the involvement

of youth into—high, medium and no involvement.

� The ‘high involvement’ category included youth who were actively involved in

management and supervision of their farms. One can term it ‘full-time farming’.

� The ‘medium involvement’ category included youth who contributed labour on

their farms when they were free from their main activity. One can term it ‘part-

time farming’.

� The ‘no involvement’ category included youth who had almost no involvement

in management of their farms.

4. There is evidence which goes against such an assumption. Kimhi (2000) in her study

‘Is part-time farming a way out of agriculture’ points out that part-time farming in

Israel was a stable arrangement adopted by farmers to reduce the risks of farming and

ensure regular cash flows. However, several other studies indicate that greater exposure

to non-farm sector tends to increase the chances of withdrawal (Speare 1974; Pfeffer

1989; Weiss 1999 cited in Glauben et al. 2003)

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