Levels of Living of Farmers and Agricultural Labourers in Rural Punjab

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to analyse the levels of living of farmers and agricultural labourers in rural Punjab. The study reveals that the levels of income and consumption expenditure of agricultural labourers, marginal, small, semi-medium farmers are significantly lower than the medium and large farmers. The consumption pattern of the agricultural labourers, marginal, small, semi-medium and medium farmsize categories is of subsistence in nature. A large share of total consumption expenditure by these categories is allocated to the non-durable items. On the other hand, in the case of large farm-size category, the highest proportion of expenditure is accounted for by the durable items, followed by socio-religious ceremonies, non-durables and services. The average propensity to consume is greater than one for the marginal, small, semi-medium and medium farm-size categories. More than four-fifth’ of the farm and agricultural labour households in the State of Punjab are under debt. The amount of debt per indebted household and per sampled household increases as farm-size goes up. The category-wise amount of debt per owned acre decreases as farm-size goes up. It implies that the burden of debt is greater on the lower farm-size categories as compared to the upper farm-size categories. The average amount of debt per indebted agricultural labour household in rural Punjab is ₹68329.88.