Journal of Rural Development

T. N. Datta ¹, Shrestha ¹, G. Chokkalingam ¹

Affiliations
1 National Dairy Development Board, Anand - 388 001, Gujarat, IN

Abstract

To understand the changes in ownership of agricultural land and bovine holding in India, analyses of agricultural census data were carried out with a view to primarily providing some valuable inputs for the prospective policymakers in the field of agro-livestock sector. The said analyses are mainly motivated towards providing insights into the structure of rural ownership of agricultural lands and associated structural changes that follow in bovine asset.

The study reveals that though the operational area remained constant, the operational landholding increased by 8.5 million during 2005-06 to 2010-11 with 1.7 million holdings getting added every year, mostly as marginal holdings and to a limited extent as small holdings. With an increase of about 7 per cent in number of landholdings, the average holding per farm reduced to 1.16 hectare in 2010-11 from 1.23 hectare in 2005-06. In India, about 83 per cent of the operational holdings are either marginal holdings (<1 hectare) or small holdings (<2 hectare) and they collectively own only 40 per cent of the agricultural land. Only seventeen per cent of the operational holdings have a holding size of more than 2 hectare but owning 60 per cent of the agricultural land. About 90 per cent of the operational land in the country is cultivated and 47 per cent of the net sown area is irrigated. The small and marginal holdings together constituting about 83 per cent own 70 per cent of bovines, 76 per cent of goat and 70 per cent of sheep and this reinforces the complementary relationship between agricultural land size and animal holding size. About 43 and 28 per cent of the rural holdings were found to be keeping adult cattle and buffalo, respectively. The combined incidence of adult bovine is found to be in excess of 43 per cent. The State-wise analysis further confirms that the marginalisation of agricultural holding is also a State phenomenon as is a national phenomenon. However, there are some States that stand out conspicuously where reverse trend is observed.

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T. N. Datta ¹, Jignesh Shah ¹, Ayush Kumar ¹, G. Chokkalingam ¹

Affiliations
1 National Dairy Development Board, Anand - 388 001, Gujarat, IN

Abstract

The analyses of Consumer Expenditure Survey data of NSS reveal consistent increase in average monthly per capita expenditure (at constant prices) over last decade, albeit it grew significantly during recent times. In terms of disparity, the gap between poorest (lowest 20 per cent of population in terms of monthly per capita expenditure-MPCE) and richest (highest 20 per cent) is higher in milk and milk products as compared to egg, fish and meat, but still lower than the gap in non-food items. With the rise in per capita expenditure, the incidence of milk consumption increases sharply in the bottom two decile groups of MPCE classes. If the ratio of consumption in poorest to richest is considered as a measure of divergence, then it is found that on milk and milk products, poorest spends only 12 and 18 per cent of the amount spent by the richest in rural and urban areas, respectively. The States like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar show higher disparity in consumption of milk in comparison to national average. In the urban areas, a similar pattern is also noticed, but the degree of divergence between poorest and richest is on the lower side. In urban areas, 96 per cent of the population consumes milk from purchases, accounting for 89 per cent of total volume of milk consumption. The balance 11 per cent of consumption demand is met from home production of milk. The incidence of milk purchase in rural areas stands at 62 per cent and accounts for about 26 per cent of the total volume of milk consumed (i.e. 74 per cent of rural consumption demand is met out from home production of milk). While the southern States of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have the largest proportion of consumption that is bought out, and therefore, offer scopes for exploring rural marketing of milk.

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