For Food and Livelihood: Rethinking the Role of Agriculture in Indias Capitalist Development

Title

For Food and Livelihood: Rethinking the Role of Agriculture in Indias Capitalist Development

Creator

Dasgupta, Anirban

Description

In India, agriculture continues to provide a source of livelihood to almost half of the employed labour force, and recent evidence (over the last 15 years) clearly indicates that the income from farming is grossly inadequate for basic sustenance for the vast majority of the agrarian population. We start our analysis by establishing some salient features of Indian agriculture, which are key in foregrounding any serious discussion on the subject. First, based on the framework proposed by Dorin, Hourcade and Benoit-Cattin, India is shown to be a country in the so-called Lewis trap zone with a simultaneous increase in agricultural population (albeit at a decreasing rate) and a growing divergence in income between agriculture and the non-agricultural sector over the last 50 years. It is argued that this phenomenon can be understood as one of perverse structural transformation in opposition to the virtuous Lewisian path that is based on the historical trajectory of Western European economies. Second, despite the persistence of low levels of productivity in most segments of agriculture, India has emerged in recent years as a food-surplus country in a net sense with significant food exports. As mentioned earlier, this self-sufficiency in food production has been achieved in a period when the majority of the farming community has undergone severe impoverishment due to the economic unviability of crop production. Based on these two observations, the chapter argues for a fundamental rethinking of agricultures role in the long-term development process in a labour-surplus economy such as India. Unlike the classical/Lewisian process of structural transformation, which is predicated on a rapid rate of labour transfer out of agriculture in combination with a corresponding increase in agricultural productivity, agriculture in countries such as India is likely to play a critical role in providing the means of social reproduction for a large mass of surplus humanity in the foreseeable future. This livelihood function of agriculture, along with its essential role in supplying food for the rest of the economy (which is in line with the Mellor-Johnston thesis), constitutes the defining elements of the future of agriculture in typical labour-abundant economies such as India. The challenge, however, is to improve the economic and ecological conditions under which agrarian livelihoods are reproduced. This will involve a fundamental change in societys recognition and valuation of the functions that farming performs and remunerating farmers appropriately for these functions. This transfer of resources to agriculture should not be seen as a mere subsidy for agriculture but as fair compensation for its essential economic and ecological services. 2026 selection and editorial matter, Sejuti Das Gupta, Shouvik Chakraborty and Taposik Banerjee; individual chapters, the contributors.

Source

Contradictions of Democracy, Development and Inequality: A Case of India;pp.137-149

Date

01-01-2025

Publisher

Taylor and Francis

Coverage

Dasgupta A., Christ University, Bengaluru, India

Rights

Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library

Relation

ISBN: 978-104038875-4; 978-103229188-8;

Format

online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003527978-12

https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105016669932?origin=resultslist