Rampur: A Village Economy

Small farmers along with their families mostly cultivate their own fields. Generally, they provide the labour required for farming themselves. Medium and large farmers hire farm labourers to work on their fields. There is heavy competition for work among the farm labourers in Rampur, so people agree to work for lower wages. With large farmers increasingly relying on machines like tractors, threshers, harvesters, the number of days of work available to a worker is very low in rural areas. Hence their wages are lower than minimum wages.

Farm Labourers: Labourers are the people who work for the landlords. They work on the field allotted on daily wages it depends from region to region. Sometimes they are paid in cash or get daily meals too. They do not have the right over the crops grown on the land. Farming requires a great deal of hard work which is done by these laborers.

Laborers working at construction sites: They are hired on a daily basis and are paid in cash for their everyday working hours.

The different ways of increasing production of the same land are:

1. All land must be cultivated and none of the lands should be left idle.

2. Growing jowar and bajra during the rainy season, which could be used to feed cattle.

3. Potatoes could be cultivated during the month of October and December, which they could sell or use it for their own consumption.

4. Then in winter wheat could be grown, which could be used for consumption and sell the surplus wheat.

5. Sugarcane could be harvested once in a year, which could be sold raw to the traders.

The medium and large farmers have their own savings from farming and are able to arrange the capital needed. They put most of their money in banks and uses savings for lending money to small farmers at high-interest rates.

The small farmers borrow money for their capital from large farmers or the village moneylenders. They charge heavy interest rates and these small farmers are put into great distress when they are unable to repay the loan back.

Savita is a small farmer who plans to cultivate wheat on her land, for this she needs seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm instruments. She needs cash to purchase the above, so she asked Tejpal Singh a large farmer for some money as a loan. He agrees to give her loan on a condition that she would pay 24% interest rate for four months and work as a laborer during harvest season at Rs35 per day.

If she would have approached the bank, then she would have got a loan at the lower interest rate, and she would not be bound with any condition of working on others field.

1. Till the 1960s the farmers used traditional seeds that had the low yielding capacity and required less irrigation.

2. Cow dung and natural manures were used as fertilizers. They did not have to invest a lot of money in farming.

3. In late 1960s government introduced The Green Revolution for the Indian farmers.

4. They were provided high yielding varieties (HYVs) of seeds of wheat and rice.

5. These seeds had high yield, required plenty of water and chemical fertilizers.

6. The farmers had to set up deep tube wells for irrigation.

7. They started using machines like tractors and threshers that made farming easy and faster.

Nonfarm production means the products that are not derived from agricultural raw materials.

Some nonfarm productions are:

1. Dairy

2. Pottery

3. Iron and Steel Production.

Labourers are the people who work for the landlords. They work on the field allotted on daily wages it depends from region to region. Sometimes they are paid in cash or get daily meals too. They do not have the right over the crops grown on the land. Farming requires a great deal of hard work which is done by these laborers.

Hence without them such a huge amount of production of crops is impossible.

If laborers are available in scarce quantity, the crop producers either have to invest a huge capital to set up machines for the production or get laborers transported from different regions.

In Rampur, the laborers have huge competition for work. So people agree to work even for low wages.

In villages, there is huge competition for work among the laborers. They are ready to work even at low wages in the fields. This keeps their income at a low level.

These laborers migrate to cities and towns in search of work. In cities, laborers are in great demand due to industries and construction. The laborers are given daily wages or even are provided with the one-time meal.

This attracts the laborers, and they migrate.

In rural areas, The forests are cleared in order to make it a plain and make use of it for cultivation. The farmers purchase the land or inherit it from their ancestors or the landlords make the farmers work as a tenant on their land.

Whereas in Urban areas the forests are cleared in order to build buildings and industries etc.

Land is an important factor for farm production.

The forests are cleared in order to make it a plain and make use of it for cultivation. The farmers purchase the land or inherit it from their ancestors or the landlords make the farmers work as a tenant on their land.

The intensive use of natural resources like water and land might have increased production but have decreased the quantity of these natural resources.

1. The land is not only used for the agricultural process, but it is also used as setting up of the production unit, to derive products from raw crops.

2. The land is used as a market yard i.e. for buying and selling purposes.

Water is required for agriculture and in the absence of an adequate amount of water the production level of crops decreases.

Intensive use of water has increased production but has reduced the level of water table. Even the regions have frequent rainfall which recharges the water table has reached a low level.

As a result, the farmers have to dig deeper tubewell for irrigation. High level of irrigation requires electricity. These have increased the consumption of electricity.

To have a well-developed irrigation system requires huge capital.