'Farming for a fee': Enabling transition of smallholder farmers from agriculture

When the finance minister presents her budget on February 1, there will be the usual outlays for expenditure and investments in agriculture. But the run-up to the budget presentation is an occasion to talk about long-term issues regarding farming.

In the latest episode of Farm Matters, our guest, Narendra Pani, proposes organisations of agricultural workers engaging in farming for a fee. Pani is from the School of Social Sciences at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

Farming for a fee

Farming for a fee would enable farmers to move out of cultivation into more productive and higher-paying activities in manufacturing or services while earning an income from their land holdings.

The services of the agricultural workers could even be made available by aggregators, much like Uber or Ola which provide taxis on demand.

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Pani says smallholder farmers will have to shift out of agriculture as its earning potential is constrained by the availability of cultivable land, which is limited and shrinking.

Opposed to leasing

He is not in favour of leasing, which the government is encouraging with a draft model law that would not allow tillers to claim ownership of land.

Government policies, he says, change under political pressure, and legal guarantees can be taken away. Leasing is also not fair on landowners who lost their land to tenants in states like Karnataka under the land reforms of the 1960s.

Allowing these tenants to create tenancies would be unfair.

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Farmers and skills

As per Pani, his proposal would allow farmers to acquire skills that would prepare them for jobs or enterprise in the non-agricultural sectors. He is not in favour of village folks migrating to cities as that causes social distress.

Rather, he wants non-agricultural activities to be dispersed so people don’t have to migrate. He believes such enterprises can come up with local capital. Pani admits that he cannot point to any country that would serve as a model.

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China and India

Even China’s development entailed the migration of rural people to the cities in massive numbers. But China can control migration with its hukou or internal passport system.

Democratic India cannot do that. But what he admires about the Chinese government is its ability to respond to ground-level signals.

Rather than impose any model, India would have to innovate and respond to the felt needs of people.