Farming has lost the ability to be a source of subsistence for majority of farmers in India.

When the Field No Longer Feeds the Farmer

In a village of Vidarbha, a cotton farmer borrows to buy seed and fertiliser, prays for the monsoon and watches the price fall at harvest. His son works as a casual labourer on construction sites in Pune, and his wife earns more from MGNREGS days than from the family plot. The land still carries the family's name and pride, but it no longer carries the family. Across much of rural India this scene is common enough to give weight to the statement that farming has lost the ability to be a source of subsistence for the majority of farmers. For most of India's small and marginal farmers, cultivation alone no longer secures a livelihood, yet the failure lies less in farming itself than in tiny holdings, rising costs, unstable prices and the slow growth of non-farm jobs.

The first reason is the shrinking farm. The Agriculture Census of 2015-16 found that marginal holdings of up to one hectare made up 68.45 per cent of all operational holdings, and the average holding had fallen to about 1.08 hectares. With each generation the land is divided again among heirs. A plot of less than a hectare, often unirrigated, cannot produce enough surplus to pay for a family's food, health, schooling and debts. The economics of scale that make farming viable elsewhere are simply absent for most Indian cultivators.

The numbers on income tell the same story. The NSS Situation Assessment Survey of 2013 found that crop cultivation provided about 48 per cent of an agricultural household's income. By the survey of 2018-19 that share had fallen to about 37 per cent, and the average agricultural household earned more from wages than from cultivating its own land, with a monthly income of about Rs 10,218. The same survey found that half of agricultural households were in debt. A household that depends on wages, livestock and transfers to survive is a household for which farming has ceased to be the mainstay.

Rising costs and falling returns squeeze the margin further. Village studies compiled by Azim Premji University found that in Tamil Nadu between 1994 and 2018, the cost of paddy cultivation rose by 11 per cent while the value of output fell by 14 per cent. Seeds, fertilisers, diesel and labour grow costlier, while prices at harvest swing with gluts and export bans. The Shanta Kumar Committee of 2015 noted that only about six per cent of farmers actually sold at the minimum support price, which means the vast majority face the open market without a floor. The farmer is a price taker on both sides: he buys inputs at retail and sells produce at wholesale.

Nature has turned from ally to adversary. Close to half of India's net sown area still depends on rain, and erratic monsoons, heatwaves and unseasonal hail now strike with growing frequency. In Punjab and Haryana, the very success of the Green Revolution has drained groundwater, and village studies describe pump sets running dry within minutes. When a single failed season can wipe out a year's income, a family with no savings and no insurance falls into debt. The National Crime Records Bureau recorded 11,290 suicides of farmers and farm labourers in 2022, a grim measure of how fragile the livelihood has become.

"Everyone Loves a Good Drought" (title of P. Sainath's 1996 book of reportage on rural distress)

The census captures the human consequence. In 2011, for the first time, the number of agricultural labourers, 144.3 million, exceeded the number of cultivators, 118.8 million, and the count of cultivators had fallen by about 86 lakh in a decade. Many families have not left the land so much as been pushed into working on others' land. Women bear a heavy share: according to PLFS 2023-24, a clear majority of working women are engaged in agriculture, yet few own the land they till and so are often excluded from credit and schemes.

Yet it would be wrong to conclude that farming has failed everywhere or forever. Where farmers have diversified, incomes have grown. India became the world's largest milk producer through Verghese Kurien's cooperative model, and dairy, poultry, fisheries and horticulture now provide steadier cash than cereals. Farmer Producer Organisations, supported by a central scheme of 2020 to form ten thousand FPOs, let smallholders bargain together. During the pandemic year 2020-21, agriculture was the one major sector that kept growing and absorbed workers returning from cities. These facts show that farming retains latent strength; what has failed is the model of a tiny plot, a single cereal crop and an unprotected market.

The deeper problem is structural. W. Arthur Lewis argued in 1954 that development means moving surplus workers from farms into more productive industry. India's transition stalled: the share of agriculture in output has fallen to under a fifth, but nearly half the workforce still depends on it, because manufacturing has not created enough jobs, a pattern Dani Rodrik calls premature deindustrialisation. Too many people remain on too little land, not because farming is attractive but because they have nowhere else to go. Subsistence fails when a sector that produces a fifth of output must feed nearly half the people.

The state has responded with income support and risk cover. PM-KISAN, launched in 2019, gives Rs 6,000 a year to landholding families, and states such as Telangana with Rythu Bandhu and Odisha with KALIA added their own transfers. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana offers crop insurance, and e-NAM seeks a national market. These measures soften distress but do not cure it, since they rarely reach tenant farmers and women cultivators who do not hold titles. The Swaminathan Commission's call for a holistic approach to farmers' welfare, not just production, remains relevant.

Building upon this, the path forward must restore viability rather than merely offer relief. Land leasing laws that protect tenants would let efficient farmers consolidate operations without dispossession. Investment in micro-irrigation, climate-resilient seeds and natural farming, as Andhra Pradesh has attempted, can cut costs and risk. Food processing and rural industry close to farms can absorb surplus labour and add value. Above all, recognising women as farmers in land records would bring millions into the reach of credit and support.

Farming has lost its ability to sustain most Indian farmers on its own, but it has not lost its potential. The cotton farmer of Vidarbha does not need sympathy so much as a larger effective farm, a fair price, water, insurance and a second source of income nearby. If India can make agriculture a productive enterprise for fewer, better-supported farmers while creating decent non-farm work for the rest, the field can once again feed the family that tills it. In the spirit of Lal Bahadur Shastri's call of "Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan", a nation that honours its farmer must ensure that his labour earns a life of dignity.