Non-Farm Income as an Instrument for Doubling Farmers’ Income: Evidences from Longitudinal Household Survey

Abstract

The study has analysed different sources of income for the rural households in Semi-Arid Tropic (SAT) region of India using the longitudinal household level data for the period 2009 to 2014. The results indicate that the share of non-farm income is substantial and increasing even for the large farm households. The non-farm income is imperative for the landless and smallholders. This paves the way for securing livelihood of landless and smallholder households by diversifying towards non-farm activities. The study has emphasized on higher agricultural credit and irrigation infrastructure for medium and large farmers. This will provide remunerative income opportunities from agriculture so that this group will continue to remain in farming activities which will help in increasing the agricultural production and will not jeopardize the ultimate goal of food security. Two important inferences drawn from the study are: (i) to make farming attractive enough, transformative changes are required, particularly for creating market for the produce, and (ii) adequate push is needed to promote secondary agriculture, like primary processing, value addition, etc. along with other non-farm activities in the rural areas.