The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India, had carried out a ‘Situation Assessment Survey of Farmers’ during January to December, 2003, as part of the 59th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS). The survey was sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. This type of survey has been conducted for the first time in the history of NSSO. The survey was conducted in the rural areas of the country and the results relate to the calendar year 2003.
The present report, namely, ‘Report No. 497: Income, Expenditure and Productive Assets of Farmer Households, 2003’ is the fifth and the final report in the series of five reports based on the findings of this survey. In all 51,770 sample farmer households spread over 6,638 villages covering the entire rural area of the whole of the Indian Union except Leh (Ladakh) and Kargil districts of Jammu & Kashmir, interior villages of Nagaland situated beyond five kilometres of any bus route, and villages in Andaman and Nicobar Islands which remained inaccessible throughout the year, were interviewed.
A farmer household was defined as one which had at least one farmer as a member. A farmer was taken to be a person who possessed some land and was engaged in agricultural activities on any part of that land during the last 365 days preceding the date of survey. Agricultural activity was taken to include cultivation of field and horticultural crops, growing of trees and plantations such as rubber, cashew, coconut, pepper, coffee, tea, etc; animal husbandry, poultry, fishery, bee-keeping, vermiculture, sericulture, etc.
The present report deals with different dimensions in the level of income, expenditure and investment in productive assets by the farmer households for farm and non-farm business. It gives, firstly, average number of productive assets of different kinds possessed per farmer household for farm and non-farm business, separately in different size classes of land possessed, as well as, in different classes of monthly per capita consumer expenditure. It further presents average monthly expenditure incurred by farmer households on productive assets for farm and non-farm business and also average monthly expenses on farming of animals per farmer household. It also shows the average income from different sources, as well as, consumption expenditure and net investment in productive assets per farmer household. The detailed tables include those for eighteen major States besides all-India. Some major findings based on the survey are presented below:
About 60 per cent of the rural households were farmer households engaged in farming activities like cultivation, plantation, animal husbandry, fishery, bee-keeping and other agricultural activities. There was only one tractor per 100 ST or SC farmer households, while there were three per 100 OBC farmer households and five per 100 Other farmer households. Among large farmer households possessing 10 hectares or more land, there were 38 tractors per 100 households. For every 100 households with medium sized farm of 4-10 hectares, there were 18 tractors. For small farmers with land in the range of 0.4 –1.0 hectare, there was only one tractor per 100 households. Tribal farmer households possessed larger number of cattle heads compared to farmer households of other categories. There were 173 heads of cattle per 100 Tribal farmer households. While SC farmer households had 98, OBC farmer households had 126 and the Others had 132 cattle per 100 farmer households. While ST/SC farmers had 40 to 45 buffaloes per 100 farmer households, the OBC and Other category had 78 to 80 buffaloes per 100 farmer households. Farmer households in the lowest monthly expenditure class had 31 buffaloes per 100 households, whereas the highest monthly expenditure class had 113 buffaloes per 100 households. Of the average monthly income of a farmer household, Rs.969 came from cultivation. Wage earning contributed Rs.819 while the non-farm business generated Rs.236 and income from farming of animals brought in only Rs.91 per farmer household. Of the average monthly expenditure incurred by farmer households in purchase and maintenance of productive assets, 81 per cent went for farm related assets, 13 per cent for residential building and 6 per cent for non-farm business. About 58 per cent of the farmers were engaged in rearing of some kind of farm animals. Households engaged in dairying spent on an average Rs.814 per month on dairy farming. Farmer households who were engaged in poultry farming spent on an average Rs.129 per month on poultry. The break-up of the total annual cultivation expenses showed that 23 per cent of the expenditure went for fertilizers and manure, 22 per cent towards labour charges, 16 per cent for seeds and 12 per cent for irrigation.The survey found that the standard of living of the average farmer household measured in terms of total monthly consumer expenditure was no different from that of the average rural households at the all India level.
NCJ/DT