Indian farmers earn more as farm labourers, suggests NSSO Data

The Indian farmers are earning more as farm labourers for the first time compared to the income from the cultivation of their lands. There has been a growth of around 60% in the income of an average farming household between 2012-13 to 2018-19, according to an analysis by the Business Standard based on the National Sample Survey Office data. This growth in income was recorded due to the rise in wages of the farm-labourers.

Rural India moving away from agriculture

It was observed that the number of families in rural India not engaged in farming increased from 6.6 crore in 2013 to 8 crore in 2019, which indicated that farming was not being seen as a lucrative option over the years, the BS analysis found.

According to the NSSO data, the average farming household income had increased from Rs 6426 in 2012-13 to Rs 10,218 per month in 2018-2019. However, BS added that if farmer’s income were adjusted for inflation, the increase was only 21% in real terms. Data showed that while the the income of the average Indian farmer from cultivation increased only marginally from Rs 3081 in 2012-13 to Rs 3798 in 2018-19, the increase in the income of farm labourers was almost 200%, growing from Rs 2071 to Rs 4063 over the same period.

Other notable findings, as reported by the BS, were that the average land ownership of a farming household had shrunk from 0.80 hectares in 2003 to 0.56 hectares in 2019 and the share of landless agricultural labourers had increased by 8.2% over the same period.

Farm labourers earning more than cultivators

NSSO’s latest report estimates imputed expenses of farm households, apart from pay-out expenses, which was not done in the previous reports. The BS report added that adjusting for the imputed expenses, the net income of the farming households from cultivation further dropped to Rs 3,058 per month in 2018-2019.

According to the NSSO data, apart from income and debt, some intrinsic characteristics of farming also seemed to have changed including the disintegration of land parcels, which has continued for the past two decades. The number of landless farm labourers have also gone up over the years.

Officially, any household with an income of over Rs 4,000 per year from agricultural activities is defined as an agricultural household.