“How Do Small Farmers Fare: Evidence from Village Studies in India,” is the fifth volume in the Agrarian Studies Series. Edited by Madhura Swaminathan and Sandipan Baksi, the book is an outcome of a study of the small farm economy in India by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung supported this study.

This volume is an attempt to examine the characteristics and viability of small producers in different agro-ecological regions of India, locating them in the broader context of capitalist development of Indian agriculture. The book seeks to examine the socio-economic characteristics of small farmers in relation to other strata of the rural population, drawing on empirical material collected through carefully designed and conducted household and farm economy surveys of 17 villages located in 9 States of India.

These surveys are a part of the ongoing Project on Agrarian Relations in India (PARI), undertaken by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS). The evidence presented in this volume points to a crisis of small farming in terms of the inability of small farmer households to generate adequate incomes to maintain a minimum standard of living. A second striking feature of the evidence presented is of inequalities and differentiation both within the study villages and across agro-ecological regions.

While small farmers account for a substantial proportion of the rural population, they operate in a capitalist market economy where a small section of rural households control the bulk of the means of production. In this context, the book emphasises the urgent need for public policy support to deliver economies of scale to small farmers and to ensure them a minimum standard of living.

Contents of the book can be found here.

You can get your copy from Tulika Books or Columbia Press.

Some reviews of “How Do Small Farmers Fare: Evidence from Village Studies in India,” are provided below:

1. Viability of Small Farmers in India, by Dr.Paramjit Singh

2. Book review by Chitra Karunakaran Prasanna, International Sociology Reviews, Volume 34, Issue 2

3. Book review by John Harriss, Journal of Agrarian Change, Volume 19, Issue 1

4. “Onus on Central Government to Support Agriculture – Interview with Professor Madhura Swaminathan” and “From the Editor: Why Do Farmers in India Get So Little Attention and Sympathy” by Sashi Nair, VIDURA Journal, Press Institute of India – Research Institute for Newspaper Development, April – June 2018

5. The Crisis of the Small Farm Economy in India by Awanish Kumar, Review of Agrarian Studies, Volume 8, Number 1

6. “Paltry Returns” by Professor Siddhartha Mitra

7. “Small farmers in Indian Agriculture” by Professor Daniel Little

8. “Small farmers in India need urgent policy support” by M. T. Sajul, Times of India, October 12, 2017