13
agricultural productivity, for which the small and marginal farmers were known
historically
4
, the difference between the average landholding for marginal
farmers at 0.383 hectare and that of 1.422 hectare for small farmers stands
out. In the revelations of higher cropping intensity and better productivity on
smaller farms, there was generally bracketing of small and marginal farmers
together in the relevant literature. In terms of resource availability, certainly
such miniscule landholdings as 0.383 hectare would face more acute resource
constraints as compared with small farmers possessing an average of 1.422
hectares. No doubt, historical studies based on farm management surveys of
the 1950s and 1960s had shown that marginal and small farms had higher
yields and better productivity than medium and large holdings. This was so
because (a) smaller holdings were characterised by some superior quality of
land; (b) there was more intensive application of self-labour in small farms
as compared with the use of hired labour in bigger farms; (c) there was also
more intensive application of inputs like bullock power or water; and (d)
small holders were found to be using technically more superior methods of
production (Bharadwaj 1974).
The productivity debate on the inverse relationship between yield and
size of landholdings, while it is interesting when dealing with the process
of agricultural growth, is nevertheless less of relevance to the theme we
are advancing here, namely, that in the present context we have to make a
distinction between small and marginal farmers. The dynamics of the growth
situation is such that a sizeable component of farm sector population would
have to move out of agriculture and in this respect, the marginal farmers would
constitute the frontiersmen candidates to move out of the farm occupation.
In the first place, the marginal farmers as they are constituted now cannot be
belonging to that profile of high productivity stature compared with medium
and big-size farms which the farm management studies had indicated earlier.
Much the larger part of those studies had belonged to the pre-green revolution
days. As Krishna Bharadwaj (1974) had brought out, production relations
have changed in their technological aspects. And as Bhalla and Chadha
(1982) had argued after making an incisive study on Punjab agriculture on
the theme of “Green Revolution and the Small Peasant”, “As capital intensity
of agricultural production increases more and more in the future, the smaller
holdings as individual units of production will be thrown to a position of
4
There was a fascinating debate in the
Economic and Political Weekly
(EPW) during 1964-1971
on the hypothesis of possible inverse relationship between farm size and productivity, generally
that the small and marginal farmers were more productive than the medium and large farmers
[See Sen 1964a and 1964b, Bhagwati and Chakravarty 1969, Agarwala 1964a and 1964b, Rudra
1968, Bhattacharya & Saini 1972, and Hanumantha Rao 1966 and 1968. For a critique of these
studies, see Bharadwaj 1974).
