IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/jpjjre/242160.html

Groundwater Market and Agricultural Development in West Bengal: Perspectives from a Village Study

Author

Listed:
  • Fujita, Koichi
  • Kundu, Ashok
  • Jaim, W. M. H.

Abstract

Based on intensive village study this paper tries to show that the rapid agricultural growth in West Bengal since the 1980s is mainly attributable to the development of private shallow tubewell irrigation, rather than the agrarian reforms. Large farmers mainly invested in tubewells, but it does not mean that they monopolize agricultural profit as the so-called 'waterlords'. On the contrary, water sales business became less profitable as the number of tubewells increased in the village, and the real water charge declined through the changes of contractual arrangement in the groundwater market. It also comments on the current situation of irrigation subsidy relating to state-operated DTWs and power subsidy given to electrified tubewells, as well as their effects to irrigated farming. Lastly, it points out the large difference in factor shares in rice production between West Bengal and Bangladesh, arguing that West Bengal agriculture is much more equitable in favor of landless laborers.

Suggested Citation

  • Fujita, Koichi & Kundu, Ashok & Jaim, W. M. H., 2003. "Groundwater Market and Agricultural Development in West Bengal: Perspectives from a Village Study," Japanese Journal of Agricultural Economics (formerly Japanese Journal of Rural Economics), Agricultural Economics Society of Japan (AESJ), vol. 5, pages 1-15.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:jpjjre:242160
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.242160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/242160/files/Fujita-Kundu-Jaim-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.242160?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dorosh, Paul A., 2001. "Trade Liberalization and National Food Security: Rice Trade between Bangladesh and India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 673-689, April.
    2. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Paul J. Gertler & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2002. "Empowerment and Efficiency: Tenancy Reform in West Bengal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 239-280, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fujita, Koichi, 2012. "Development strategy in Bihar through revitalizing the agricultural sector : a preliminary analysis," IDE Discussion Papers 332, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    2. Fujita, Koichi, 2010. "The Green Revolution and Its Significance for Economic Development," Working Papers 17, JICA Research Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dostie, Benoit & Jayaraman, Rajshri, 2006. "Determinants of School Enrollment in Indian Villages," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 405-421, January.
    2. Aragón, Fernando M., 2015. "Do better property rights improve local income?: Evidence from First Nations' treaties," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 43-56.
    3. Chaoran Chen, 2017. "Untitled Land, Occupational Choice, and Agricultural Productivity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 91-121, October.
    4. B Kelsey Jack, "undated". "Market Inefficiencies and the Adoption of Agricultural Technologies in Developing Countries," CID Working Papers 50, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    5. Falkinger, Josef & Grossmann, Volker, 2013. "Oligarchic land ownership, entrepreneurship, and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 206-215.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2007. "The Economic Lives of the Poor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 141-168, Winter.
    7. Ayala-Cantu, Luciano & Morando, Bruno, 2020. "Rental markets, gender, and land certificates: Evidence from Vietnam," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    8. Chen, Shuo & Lan, Xiaohuan, 2020. "Tractor vs. animal: Rural reforms and technology adoption in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    9. Sengupta, Atanu & Kundu, Subrata, 2006. "Scale Efficiency of Indian Farmers: A Non- Parametric Approach," Indian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, vol. 61(4), pages 1-11.
    10. Genesis T. Yengoh & Frederick Ato Armah & Edward Ebo Onumah, 2010. "Paths to Attaining Food Security: The Case of Cameroon," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-22, August.
    11. Bardhan, Pranab & Luca, Michael & Mookherjee, Dilip & Pino, Francisco, 2014. "Evolution of land distribution in West Bengal 1967–2004: Role of land reform and demographic changes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 171-190.
    12. Christiano Arrigoni Coelho & Bruno Funchal, 2006. "Strategic Default And Personal Credit: The Brazilian Natural Experiment," Anais do XXXIV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 34th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 97, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    13. Henk-Jan Brinkman & Cullen S. Hendrix, 2010. "Food Insecurity and Conflict," World Bank Publications - Reports 27510, The World Bank Group.
    14. Amit Nandan & Hrushikesh Mallick, 2022. "Do growth-promoting factors induce income inequality in a transitioning large developing economy? An empirical evidence from Indian states," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 1109-1139, May.
    15. Malcolm Keswell & Michael R. Carter, 2011. "Poverty and Land Distribution: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-046, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Quisumbing, Agnes R. & Kumar, Neha, 2014. "Land rights knowledge and conservation in rural Ethiopia: Mind the gender gap," IFPRI discussion papers 1386, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    17. Marijn Bolhuis & Swapnika Rachapalli & Diego Restuccia, 2026. "Misallocation in Indian Agriculture," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 378-408, April.
    18. Mariapia MENDOLA, 2005. "Farm households production theories: a review of institutional and behavioural responses," Departmental Working Papers 2005-01, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    19. Alam, Mohammad Jahangir & Begum, Ismat Ara, 2012. "World and Bangladesh Rice Market Integration: An Application of Threshold Cointegration and Threshold Vector Error Correction Model (TVECM)," 86th Annual Conference, April 16-18, 2012, Warwick University, Coventry, UK 135119, Agricultural Economics Society.
    20. Santos, Florence & Fletschner, Diana & Savath, Vivien & Peterman, Amber, 2014. "Can Government-Allocated Land Contribute to Food Security? Intrahousehold Analysis of West Bengal’s Microplot Allocation Program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 860-872.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:jpjjre:242160. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aesjjea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.