We are all aware of the plight of the farmers — how they want to give up farming and how many of them are driven to suicides — the agrarian crisis in general. However, their genuine concerns notwithstanding, most people are actually not aware of how poor the sharecroppers are. Through an extensive survey of 13,275 farm households in 59 districts of UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand, we have done a micro-analysis and determined exactly how much cash the small and marginal sharecropper farmers earn with paddy and wheat farming. The survey reveals that, after they keep the grains for bare survival, the income is just Rs 41,350 per year for a family of five. They are, however, forced to live in misery as most of them do not have a viable alternative.

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In the area studied, about 85 per cent of the farmers were marginal farmers; about 10 per cent small farmers; and less than 5 per cent above them. The small and marginal farmers do sharecropping to supplement their income as the lands they own are of low fertility (valuation), having been sold to them rather cheaply in the 70s and 80s by the landowners to evade ceiling laws. Usually, for 50/50 share in the produce, the landowners are supposed to provide irrigation facilities, while the sharecroppers are supposed to bear all other costs. In case the landowner is not providing irrigation facilities, he forfeits his claim on the straw (bhoosa) and stalk (puaal). In the areas studied, the percentage of crop area under canal-irrigation ranged from 4.06 (districts of Jharkhand) to 23.9 (districts of UP) with an average of 13.52 per cent; and the percentage of crop area under groundwater and rain irrigation ranged from 3.33 (districts of Chhattisgarh) to 60.45 (districts of UP) with an average of 23.95 per cent.

In practice, being cash-starved as they are, the sharecroppers try to reduce costs as much as possible. This involves using home-grown paddy as seedlings instead of purchasing High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds; dispensing with Diammonium phosphate (DAP) and using only urea; dispensing with pesticides and doing de-weeding manually, etc. This results in reduced productivity but they cannot help it.

After taking into account the average grain losses in pre-harvest, harvest, and post-harvest stages (including milling) in traditional methods, the production is found to be a little over 9 quintals of paddy per acre, and for wheat a little over 8 quintals per acre. The threshers typically retain 15 per cent of the produce and the loss is shared. In the end, the sharecropper is left with just about 4 quintals of rice per acre and 3.5 quintals of wheat per acre as his share—and that too when we have not taken into account the effects of vagaries of nature likely untimely rains, hailstorm, deficient rains, excessive rains, floods, unexpected diseases, destruction by stray cattle and nilgai, etc. 

They cannot sell all of it because they have to retain a part of it for their own consumption. With very little coming by way of proteins (except some pulses) and fats in their diet, the typical consumption of wheat flour and rice for agricultural labourers in a day is actually higher than what is prescribed as a standard for the army and paramilitary personnel [at the rate of 220 grams wheat flour plus 400 grams of rice and 90 grams of pulses (split legumes) per day], for example. Assuming a family of five, this makes their personal consumption requirement at about 4 quintals (396 kg) of wheat and 7.2 quintals of rice per year. This means that if the sharecropper has to be left with any cash at all after his bare survival, he should be working on more than 2 acres of paddy fields and one acre of wheat fields. The extent of fields they get to work on varies greatly from place to place — so much so that no average can be worked out. Assuming that they get to work on 5 acres each of paddy and wheat fields by stretching every single muscle in the family, they can sell the produce of 3 acres of paddy and 4 acres of wheat. At the last announced MSP of Rs 1550 per quintal for paddy and Rs 1625 per quintal for wheat, this would bring in a maximum cash income of Rs 41,350 per annum (or Rs 113 per day for five people) only! The cost of farming has to be paid from this meagre income — the amount depending on how much cost-cutting the sharecropper has done.

From this cash, they have to manage every other necessity of life besides food for survival. In cases of drought and flood, the benefit of government largesse goes to the landowner only and not to the sharecropper. The income is too low to enable them to repay any loan taken, leading to debt trap and eventual suicides. Migration to the urban labour market is not practicable for everyone for personal reasons (like family responsibilities, poor education and health issues of family members, etc.) they are condemned to their miserable existence with little hope of redemption.

Dr NC Asthana is a serving IPS officer and is presently posted as DGP Modernization in Kerala. RS Rai, a postgraduate in economics, is a retired Assistant Director of the Intelligence Bureau. Priyamvada Asthana, an electronics engineer, is a researcher in public policy.