Socio-economic factors, beyond just farm size, significantly influence input use in Indian agriculture, emphasizing the need for targeted policies considering these factors to enhance productivity.
Authors
Avanindra Nath Thakur, Professor, Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana, Sonipat, 131001, India.
Summary
Inadequate input use has been one of the biggest factors constraining productivity growth in Indian agriculture. There have been rich scholarly interventions relating input use to productivity growth in India. However, the level of input use depends on a complex set of factors, including the socio-economic profile of farmers. Though there has been a system of public provisioning of various inputs, the awareness, access, and affordability of desirable inputs depends heavily on the socio-economic status of the farmer. Most of the studies regarding input use are limited to the size of the farms.
This study explores the determinants of input use in a relatively comprehensive way by incorporating a large set of factors reflecting the socio-economic condition of farmers in India. Along with the farm size of the farmer, it also includes social groups, gender, education level, access to Kisan Credit Card, membership of farmer’s organisation, family size, awareness about minimum support price, access to public procurement, type of land holdings, access to bank account, access to crop insurance, and age group of farmers as determinants of input use in the farming process. To have a broader and more consistent analysis, rice cultivation is taken as a case study. The paper draws its conclusion based on NSSO 77th round unit level data by using OLS regression to show that the socio-economic profile influences input use in a substantial manner. Without considering such differentiation across farmers, no policies or programmes targeting input use would be fully effective in the Indian context.
Published in: Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics
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