Saving small farms is key to India’s food future

The last 50 to 70 years have been witness to a troubling trend: the number of farmers in many Western countries has diminished steadily, sometimes at an alarming rate. In Italy and Ireland, the share of the labour force in agriculture has reduced from 33% and 37%, respectively, in 1950 to less than 5% now. In Poland, this figure has plunged from 57% in 1950 to less than 10% now. (Data derived from Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World, a 2023 book on European farming by Patrick Joyce.)

In several countries, the exit of farmers from the agricultural economy peaked around the 1970s and ’80s. In the US, around the time of Ronald Reagan’s presidency (1981-89), it was estimated that American farmers were going out of business at the rate of one every eight minutes. According to the British environmental journal The Ecologist (1970-2009), most of these former cultivators who had to leave farming were small farmers. In the UK, the number of farms fell from 4,54,000 to 2,43,000 within less than three decades, from 1953 to 1981.

In most cases, this loss of farmers globally has been tied to factors such as over-mechanisation, increasing expenses resulting in growing debts, and a deliberate pursuit of policies by the authorities that favoured the concentration of land and capital while being unfavourable to small farmers. In the UK, pesticide costs alone had increased 10 times from the early 1970s to early 1991. A British farmer in the early 1970s needed 15 cows to make a living; in the 1980s, he needed 75 dairy cows to make the same amount of money. The situation became financially untenable, prompting the farmers to abandon farming entirely. Others continued to slip further into debt. According to data from The Ecologist, by 1991, 70% of the net farm income would be used to pay off debts.

While such farmers left farming rather sadly and with great reluctance, the situation has been interpreted differently by big business interests and corporations. Per them, food and farm produce availability for these countries were not impacted, despite the mass farmer exodus. This was construed as the farmers not being productively employed, which means their exit from farming has ultimately led to a gain for the economy.

This is a highly flawed argument, which ignores how the new model of vast monoculture farms that took root in the latter half of the 20th century employed—or rather mined—ecologically destructive ways by using heavy machinery, excessive fossil fuels and hazardous agrochemicals. It is incapable of sustainability and producing food that will boost health. The soil is mined to somehow yield maximum output in the short term, which means the organic content of the soil cannot be protected for sustainability.

Replicating the same trends could be particularly dangerous for economies in the global South, especially agrarian ones. These economies’ capacity to absorb displaced farmers is significantly less than in the global North.

Also read: It takes a village: Transforming the fate of unproductive land

Need for small farmers and family farms

For countries like India, the more beneficial model would be ​​for families to retain their farms in order to earn their primary livelihood. One or more members can then take up additional full-time or part-time work, especially during lean seasons. Government schemes, like the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), can help achieve this. Gandhi’s emphasis on village-level agro-processing and developing other cottage and village industries also fits this vision. Small-scale farmers and family farms are also indispensable to the protection of soil; only they can care for plants and crops in ways that assure optimum yield in sustainable ways.

In 2001, India had 127.3 million land-owning farmers, which dropped to 118.7 million in 2011 as per census data. The number of land-owning farmers dropped by 8.6 million within a decade. This means that about 100 farmers left farming behind every hour (or about 2,400 per day) through this decade or were rendered landless. Needless to say, most of them were small farmers.

This was unfortunate, as one of our foremost priorities should be strengthening small farmers and family farms. A large majority of Indian farmers are small farmers, mostly working on family farms with important contributions by women. Although data can differ depending on how small farmers are defined, broadly it can be said that although nearly three-fourths of our farmers are small farmers, they own only about half of the total land. And despite the difficulties and constraints faced by them in various contexts, they manage to contribute to almost half of the total food production in the country.

About 100 farmers left farming behind every hour (or about 2,400 per day) through this decade or were rendered landless. Needless to say, most of them were small farmers.

One of the most important ways to empower small farmers is to reduce their cash expenses, which will also bring down their debts and save their lands. This can be done by making the best possible use of local free resources—which can be taken forward in various variants of natural farming in tune with local conditions. Many small farmers have proved with their highly creative approaches and dedication that the availability of healthy and diverse food can be accomplished while reducing their expenses and simultaneously protecting the soil, and economising on water use.

This approach calls for constant learning, including practising mutually supportive and productive activities. Friendly insects and pollinators can also be protected—even when healthy food production is increased—through mixed cropping and proper rotations. None of this can be achieved with over-mechanised monocultures overfed with hazardous agrochemicals. It’s a job cut out for small farmers and family farms.

Also read: Why India needs to invest in natural farming

American writer and farmer Wendell Berry says in The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture, “The farmer differs from the industrialist in that the farmer is necessarily a nurturer, a preserver of the health of creatures. The economy of the industry is typically extractive. It takes, makes, uses and discards, it progresses, from exhaustion to pollution. Agriculture, on the other hand, rightly belongs to a replenishing economy, which takes, makes, uses and returns—it involves the return to the source, not just of fertility or of so-called wastes but also of care and affection.”

This “care and affection” Berry mentions can only be provided by small farmers, and not big machines and corporations. Unfortunately, policies have not been encouraging towards these communities. Instead, as Berry says in the context of the US, “It is a work of monstrous ignorance and irresponsibility on the part of the experts and politicians, who have prescribed, encouraged and applauded the disintegration of farming communities all over the country.”

Further, Berry writes, “What we have called agricultural progress has, in fact, involved the forcible displacement of millions of people.”

He goes on to make critical concluding observations: “Food is a cultural product, it cannot be produced by technology alone…a healthy farm culture can be based only upon familiarity and can grow only among a people soundly established upon the land; it nourishes and safeguards a human intelligence of the earth that no amount of technology can satisfactorily replace.”

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This is a statement of global relevance—but is especially pertinent to India— as it succinctly explains why it is important to protect and strengthen communities of small farmers and family farms as the foundations of the food and farming system.

In times of more adverse weather and climate change, the government must play a much bigger supportive role for them. Further, experience in many parts of the country reveals that a combination of greater self-reliance, low expenditure on expensive external inputs and adoption of sustainable natural farming practices can contribute a lot to keeping these farmers out of crisis and debt traps.

Also read: RTI Act: A powerful tool in fighting hunger