Significance of small land-holdings in meeting food requirement of household in India: Evidences from IHDS surveys

Abstract

In a country like India, where the sheer majority of landholding is small, this paper discusses the role of agriculture in fulfilling the food related need of the household with the help of IHDS-I (2005) and IHDS-II (2011) and data set. According to the findings of IHDS-I, in 2005, in India in rural area around 50.2 percent of household own some land and cultivated it and among them there are around 83 percent of household which is small holders (less than 2 Hectare) and most of the peasants in India produce food grains. As the size of holdings increases, farmers diversify its cropping pattern. Around 66 percent of rice producer and around 84 percent of wheat producer don’t sell their agriculture product. Among sub-marginal farmers (0.05 to 0.5 Hectare), who produced rice, 46 per cent of them completely and 25 per cent of them partially depends upon homegrown rice. Those who cultivated wheat, 31 per cent of them completely and 66 per cent of them partially depends upon homegrown produced. Thus majority of the smallholder’s household are not even able to fulfill their own household food-grain requirement and purchasing it from market fully or partially, as a result, they are vulnerable to price fluctuations. Therefore, the development policy on agriculture should concentrate not only on increasing production must but small holders should be targeted in growth process. Controlling the market price and intensifying food security net and focusing non-agricultural employment for cash earning are the other available options which should be taken into account. Result from multivariate analysis also confirms that the household, which has better possession on land and which depends upon cultivation is more secured in case of food compared to the laborers household, it indicates that if the production of small-holders increases, its benefit directly reaches to farmers in terms of food security.