Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
RS Jadhav, HR Shinde, AA Pisal and MS Jadhav

Abstract:
India has been a predominantly an agrarian economy and agriculture continues to be the main stay the economy even today. Majority of the farmers in India are small and marginal farmers. Over 58 percent of rural household depends on agriculture for their principal means of livelihood. Although its contribution to Gross Domestic Product is 16.5% (Economic survey, 2020), it is still the largest employment source and a significant piece of the overall socio-economic development of India. This paper aims at analyzing the economic viability of small and marginal holders considering the average income generated from different sources in Nashik district of Maharashtra. The farmers are categorised into two groups on the basis of economic surplus left with a farm household after deducting the domestic expenditure from the net returns from crop and livestock plus off-farm income of the respective farm household. The farmers having positive economic surplus were grouped as viable farmers and the farmers with negative economic surplus were categorized as non-viable farmers. The economic analysis of data observed that the average economic surplus for marginal and small farms in Niphad are economically positive by depending upon crops and dairy. Income from off-farm activities helped farmers to improve their overall economic surplus whereas marginal farmers have negative surplus and small farmers is positive in Dindori. Also, it was found that overall, 84.38% sample farmers were viable and 15.62% were non-viable in Niphad whereas the Viable farmers in Dindori were 61.75% and non-viable was 31.25%. It was concluded that the viability was high in small farmers in Niphad and non-viability was higher among marginal farmers in Dindori.