Rural Livelihoods

Introduction

In rural areas, agriculture is a principal activity; however, manufacturing or services form a significant part of the economic activity in the urban areas. Primary activities are related to agriculture fields, secondary activities are related to manufacturing, while tertiary activities are related to the service sector. The secondary and tertiary sectors form the urban lifestyle, while the primary sector (agriculture) creates the rural lifestyle.

Agricultural Sector

Figure 1: Rural Farming

The agricultural sector, however, is not able to give full-time employment. Prepare the samplings in June, then transplant the crops in august, weeding them out in October, and finally harvest them in December. So, you only have employment in these months where you are either weeding, harvesting, or preparing the samplings. However, the other six months are the lean months. During the rest of the six months, what would happen? The farmer would either be engaged in some other activity in the urban area where the farmer would move out to the metropolitan area to get a job for six months and come back to the farm when required. The other way of sustaining could be finding employment in the village like loading sand and mining jobs. So these are some kinds of seasonal jobs that a laborer can get.

Types of Agricultural Laborers and Holdings

Laborers themselves can be of various types. There are three types of agricultural holdings.

Marginal holdings

These labourers can be in the form of landless labourers who do not have their land. These laborious work for other's farmers and get daily wages. On the other hand, you have farmers with small plots of one hector or less

Medium holdings

These are farmers with small plots that range between two to four hectares

Large holdings

These framers have significant holdings. These farmers have holdings of up to four to ten hectares.

Issues in the Agricultural Sector

Only 20% of Indian farmers possess considerable holdings. This is why most farmers have good equipment since only 20% of framers in India can bring good equipment to the farm because of their vast holdings. If a farmer gets a tractor, he should at least have acres of land to use the tractor.

Figure 2: Crop Planting

Example

Let us assume that a farmer has four children. This so what happens when the farmer gets old. There could be two ways of working around it. The first is that the farmer maintains his piece of land and asks all the four children to work on the same ground. The other could be dividing the amount of land into four parts so that he can give a piece of land each. Here the size of lands further decreases, and farmers possess a smaller landholding. With such a small landholding, would it be possible to work around a piece of extensive equipment? It is far from being possible.

So what happens with this small farm is that it is only suitable for subsistence agriculture. Subsistence agriculture means agriculture that can sustain a family or their closest relatives. This is a minimal amount of production that occurs, which helps to satisfy one's family demands.

The other option to distribute the land could be a consolidation batch of these holdings, as has occurred in China, and the Soviet Union, where you call the landowners communes. Here the government takes all the land and consolidates it into a single unit. Now, this single unit is further segregated among the landholders. However, the landowner remains intact with the ground. This means that you can bring machinery and heavy equipment that could work better than smaller landholdings. But in reality, in India, big farms are only occupied by only 20% of the farmers, whereas 80% of farmers of India have small plots, and those small plots are further getting smaller and smaller

Case study of Kalpattu Village

Kalpattu village lies near the sea coast of Tamil Nadu. Here farming is one of the significant activities, while the other non-farming activities include basket weaving, utensil making, brick making, etc. You also have some meagre services like washermen, nurses, teachers, or barbers, which are now coming up in the rural areas. Now that schools are coming up and hospitals are coming up, you can see a small proportion of the service sector entering the rural livelihood.

In the production, you have predominantly paddy, coconut, sugarcane, and plantain seen in this area. As we know that two-thirds of agricultural land production is done by rural labourers, most of whom are landless labourers. This manages to have a dynamic shift in the economy of rural areas.

Let's say that you have a piece of land where you crop certain trees. Most of the crops you own are being used for yourself because of the small portion of the land. At the same time, a few remaining crops that remain are sold in the market. When you sell the crops in the market, you get money in return, which is invested in seeds and fertilizers. This is true for small farmers, whereas they get more money when big farmers sell their crops. When they get more money, they can invest in assets like tractors and heavy machinery for farm equipment

So, since they are generating more income, they are investing more, and when they invest more, they get more returns

Conclusion

This is a vicious cycle that goes on where the prosperous farmer gets to be more affluent; however, in the case of a poor farmer, if there is no good crop, he would have to borrow money which would increase his debt. Since he has a higher obligation now, he would have to borrow more, and this cycle goes on and on where a poor farmer tends to become poor and poor. This is very common with the farmers of Orrisa, where we often hear news about many farmers committing suicide.

However, things are changing with the coming of the government institution in the rural areas where governments offer loans with less interest to help the farmer grow.

FAQs

Q1. What is rural livelihood?

Ans. Agriculture is the primary economic activity in rural regions; however, manufacturing and services account for a significant portion of economic activity in metropolitan areas. Primary activities are associated with agriculture, secondary activities with manufacturing, and tertiary activities with the service sector

Q2. What are the types of agricultural holdings?

Ans. Following are the types of agricultural holdings

• Marginal holdings

• These labourers can be in the form of landless labourers who do not have their land. These laborious work for other's farmers and get daily wages. On the other hand, you have farmers with small plots of one hector or less

• Medium holdings

• These are farmers with small plots that range between two to four hectares.

• Large holdings

• These framers have significant holdings. These farmers have holdings of up to four to ten hectares.

Q3. What are the flaws in the agricultural sectors??

Ans: Only 20% of Indian farmers have significant land holdings. Because most farmers have good equipment because just 20% of Indian framers can transport proper equipment to the land due to their enormous holdings. If a farmer buys a tractor, he should be able to utilise it on acres of land..

Q4. Describe the case study of Kalpattu village

Ans. Kalpattu village lies near the sea coast of Tamil Nadu. Here farming is one of the significant activities, while the other nonfarming activities include basket weaving, utensil making, brick making, etc. You also have some meagre services like washermen, nurses, teachers, or barbers, which are now coming up in the rural areas. Now that schools are coming up and hospitals are coming up, you can see a small proportion of the service sector entering the rural livelihood.