Small farmers in Karnataka feel that it is better for their children to take up jobs with a regular salary since income from agriculture is low and often crops are damaged due to vagaries of nature, points out a study based on in-depth interviews.
Farmers with one to five acres of irrigated land and up to seven acres of non-irrigated land were interviewed in Koppal, Raichur, Kalaburagi, and Hubballi as part of research spread across Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh by The/Nudge Institute, Centre for Rural Development.
About 66% of the participating farmers were above 40 years. As many as 89% of the respondents did not want their children to take up farming. In all, 107 farmers were interviewed between November 2021 and February 2022.
Many sources of income
With low income from agriculture, farmers are earning their livelihood from three to four sources, including taking additional land on lease or share cropping that had advance rental payment with no compensation benefit to the tenant farmer in case of crop damage. “Though they identify themselves as farmers and are committed to it, the majority of farmers do not want their children to become farmers. They think farming is a difficult profession with low income, high effort and high risk,” the study said.
The other sources of income that the farmers are dependent on are agriculture labour, MNREGA, dairy and livestock, and income from other family members. While MNREGA contributes 4% to 12% of income depending on the number of days of work, most farmers preferred it since they considered it an easy task, the interview revealed. The Prime Minister Kisan Yojana, PDS, and other DBT have high reach among farmers.
Crop loans
The research revealed that as many as 67% of farmers had crop loans of whom only 16% were repaying. Most others are not being repaid or only interest being paid in the hope of a loan waiver from the Government. Informal loans are from friends and family, moneylenders, other farmers and availed mostly at a rate of 2% interest per month. On an average based on the data from Kalaburagi, Koppal, and Raichur, a farmer has ₹2.4 lakh of loan in a financial year.
As many as 90% of farmers do not get the soil tested. Even if the soil is tested, farmers were not aware of the results or were aware of the deficiencies but not using fertilisers as per recommendations. Though all bank crop loans are bundled with crop insurance, half of the farmers with bank loans were not aware if they had crop insurance. While most farmers had a mobile phone, they used it for communication, entertainment and rate inquiry but not necessarily for improving agricultural practices.
