Land and livelihoods in rural India: does farm size matter?

Abstract

This paper examines the question of role of land in rural livelihoods and that of small farms in the Indian smallholder and large landlessness context by focusing on the issue of size of the farm. It reviews evidence on the changing profile of farms globally and in India from the perspective of small and landless farmers. The paper argues that the size of the farm is not an issue for modern and sustainable agriculture and makes inferences about managing land in a sustainable way, including institutional approaches like group approaches and contract farming, from a smallholder and farmworker perspective.