Economics of Farming in Mahatwar, Uttar Pradesh

Recent policy efforts have focussed on transforming eastern Uttar Pradesh, an acknowledgement of the relative backwardness of the region’s agricultural development. Despite this, there has been little discussion in the literature of agrarian relations and their implications for the economics of farming. Taking Mahatwar village in eastern Uttar Pradesh as a case study, this article examines disparities across socio-economic classes in incomes and the costs of cultivation. We found substantial inequality, with landlord and big capitalist farmer households earning nearly 30 times the annual income of lower peasant and manual worker households. These disparities arise primarily from differences in costs: poor peasant and manual worker households bear a disproportionate rental burden, rely excessively on family labour, and use much of their produce for self-consumption. Our findings highlight the need for rent reduction and yield enhancement, along with support measures such as minimum support prices (MSPs), to provide meaningful incomes to low-income farmers.