Large Farmers to Middle men to Large Farmers - The vicious cycle
Punjab is an agriculturally developed but land scarce economy. The ownership of land is an economic asset and carries a social prestige in the society. The small farmers find it difficult to keep their land intact.
Punjab is an agriculturally developed but land scarce economy. The ownership of land is an economic asset and carries a social prestige in the society. The small farmers find it difficult to keep their land intact.
The number of operational holdings in the state was 11.17 lakh in 1990-91, which declined to 9.97 lakh in 2000-01. The picture of small farmers (< 5 acres of land) was very precarious as their number has declined from 5 lakh to about 3 lakh during this period.
This shows that about 2 lakh small farmers have either leased out or sold their entire land or part of it. A report on the status of farmers who left farming in Punjab states that out of 2 lakh families who left farming, about 36 per cent families have sold their entire land
whereas another 11.4 per cent families have sold part of their land.
The field survey of the Research study from which I am quoting these reveals that about 10 per cent farmers sold their means of production including land, tractor, farm implements and other assets like
The field survey of the Research study from which I am quoting these reveals that about 10 per cent farmers sold their means of production including land, tractor, farm implements and other assets like
livestock, gold ornaments, and trees to repay the loan. Some of these farmers sold their assets even at distress prices due to the continuous pressure of the commission agents. Another recent field survey on ‘land market in rural Punjab’ reveals that in land sold to
commission agents by the farmers, the buyers were largely non- traditional commission agents. This is a new trend of purchasing land of the farmers by the commission agents. The traditional commission agents are least interested in purchasing the land of the farmers;
if they purchase, they try to recover their disbursed amount by diverting it through the large farmers under some specific mechanism. Sometimes, they extend the financial support to the medium and large farmers for purchasing the land of indebted farmers.
In this way, they recover their loan ‘on paper’ merely by diverting these loans from the distressed peasantry towards medium and large farmers.
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