IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i20p13438-d946303.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • 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)

  • Arshdeep Singh

    (Department of Economics and Sociology, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India)

  • Dalbeer Singh

    (Department of Extension Education, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana 141004, India)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Rohit Saini & Manjeet Kaur & Randeep Singh & Kashish Arora & Gurlal Singh & Gurleen Kaur & Sukhdeep Singh & Arshdeep Singh & Dalbeer Singh, 2022. "Understanding Sustenance of Small Farm Holders: A Study of Income Inequality among Farm Households in Indian Punjab," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:20:p:13438-:d:946303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/20/13438/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/20/13438/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. S. Mahendra Dev, 2012. "Small Farmers in India: Challenges and Opportunities," Working Papers id:5037, eSocialSciences.
    2. Peter Lanjouw & Rinku Murgai & Nicholas Stern, 2013. "Nonfarm diversification, poverty, economic mobility, and income inequality: a case study in village India," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(4-5), pages 461-473, July.
    3. Adams, Richard H. Jr. & He, Jane J., 1995. "Sources of income inequality and poverty in rural Pakistan:," Research reports 102, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    4. Timothy Smeeding & Gunther Schmaus & Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well-Being, Inequality and Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using the LIS Database," LIS Working papers 17, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    5. Singh, Sukhpal & Bhogal, Shruti & Singh, Randeep, 2014. "Magnitude and Determinants of Indebtedness Among Farmers in Punjab," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 69(2), pages 1-14.
    6. Lanjouw, Peter & Stern, Nicholas, 1998. "Economic Development in Palanpur over Five Decades," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288329, December.
    7. Pisani, Elena, 2006. "Some socio-economic consequences of the green revolution," MPRA Paper 24977, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Jianxu Liu & Mengjiao Wang & Li Yang & Sanzidur Rahman & Songsak Sriboonchitta, 2020. "Agricultural Productivity Growth and Its Determinants in South and Southeast Asian Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-21, June.
    9. Brigitte Buhmann & Lee Rainwater & Guenther Schmaus & Timothy M. Smeeding, 1988. "Equivalence Scales, Well‐Being, Inequality, And Poverty: Sensitivity Estimates Across Ten Countries Using The Luxembourg Income Study (Lis) Database," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 34(2), pages 115-142, June.
    10. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    11. repec:bla:revinw:v:34:y:1988:i:2:p:115-42 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. S. Mahendra Dev, 2012. "Small farmers in India: Challenges and opportunities," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2012-014, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Torregrosa-Hetland, Sara, 2016. "Sticky Income Inequality In The Spanish Transition (1973-1990)," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 39-80, March.
    2. Mary C. Daly & Robert G. Valletta, 2000. "Inequality and poverty in the United States: the effects of changing family behavior and rising wage dispersion," Working Paper Series 2000-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    3. Muhammad Irshad Ahmad & Les Oxley & Hengyun Ma, 2020. "What Makes Farmers Exit Farming: A Case Study of Sindh Province, Pakistan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, April.
    4. World Bank, 2003. "Brazil : Inequality and Economic Development, Volume 1. Policy Report," World Bank Publications - Reports 14653, The World Bank Group.
    5. Bina Agarwal & Ankush Agrawal, 2016. "To farm or not to farm? Indian farmers in transition," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 012016, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    6. Nerijus Cerniauskas & Andrius Ciginas, 2019. "Measurement and decomposition of Lithuania’s income inequality," Bank of Lithuania Discussion Paper Series 14, Bank of Lithuania.
    7. Angela Daley & Thesia I. Garner & Shelley Phipps & Eva Sierminska, 2020. "Differences across Place and Time in Household Expenditure Patterns: Implications for the Estimation of Equivalence Scales," Economic Working Papers 520, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    8. Katarzyna Growiec & Jakub Growiec, 2016. "Bridging Social Capital and Individual Earnings: Evidence for an Inverted U," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 601-631, June.
    9. Herwig Immervoll & Horacio Levy & José Ricardo Nogueira & Cathal O´Donoghue & Rozane Bezerra de Siqueira, 2005. "The Impact of Brazil´s Tax-Benefit System on Inequality and Poverty," Ibero America Institute for Econ. Research (IAI) Discussion Papers 117, Ibero-America Institute for Economic Research.
    10. Deniz Sevinc & Edgar Mata Flores & Simon Collinson, 2020. "Are there inequality spillovers? Evidence through a modified inequality measure and European dynamics of inequality," Working Papers 545, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    11. Jeetendra Prakash Aryal & Tek B. Sapkota & Ritika Khurana & Arun Khatri-Chhetri & Dil Bahadur Rahut & M. L. Jat, 2020. "Climate change and agriculture in South Asia: adaptation options in smallholder production systems," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(6), pages 5045-5075, August.
    12. Pedro Salas-Rojo & Juan Gabriel Rodríguez, 2022. "Inheritances and wealth inequality: a machine learning approach," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 20(1), pages 27-51, March.
    13. Cem Baslevent & Meltem Dayoglu, 2005. "The Effect of Squatter Housing on Income Distribution in Urban Turkey," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(1), pages 31-45, January.
    14. Burkhauser, Richard V. & Larrimore, Jeff & Simon, Kosali I., 2012. "A "Second Opinion" on the Economic Health of the American Middle Class," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(1), pages 7-32, March.
    15. Jing Yang & Pundarik Mukhopadhaya, 2019. "Is the ADB’s Conjecture on Upward Trend in Poverty for China Right? An Analysis of Income and Multidimensional Poverty in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(2), pages 451-477, June.
    16. Bruce Headey & Peter Krause & Roland Habich, 1993. "East Germany: Rising Incomes, Unchanged Inequality and the Impact of Redistributive Government 1990-92," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 72, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Leonardo Gasparini & Mariana Marchionni & Walter Sosa Escudero, 2000. "Characterization of inequality changes through microeconometric decompositions. The case of Greater Buenos Aires," IIE, Working Papers 025, IIE, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    18. N. Lalitha & Madhusudan Bandi & Soumya Vinayan, 2021. "Bhalia wheat in Gujarat: Does geographical indication registration have a role in arresting the decline?," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 23(1), pages 93-112, June.
    19. Bandyopadhyay, Sanghamitra & Cowell, Frank, 2007. "Modelling vulnerability in the UK," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2692, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Lars Osberg, 2002. "How Much does Work Matter for Inequality? Time, Money and Inequality in International Perspective," LIS Working papers 326, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:20:p:13438-:d:946303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.