Abstract:
In a country like India, where the sheer majority of landholding is small, this paper discusses the role of
agriculture in fulfilling the food related need of the household with the help of IHDS-I (2005) and IHDS-II
(2011) and data set.
According to the findings of IHDS-I, in 2005, in India in rural area around 50.2 percent of household own
some land and cultivated it and among them there are around 83 percent of household which is small holders
(less than 2 Hectare) and most of the peasants in India produce food grains. As the size of holdings increases,
farmers diversify its cropping pattern. Around 66 percent of rice producer and around 84 percent of wheat
producer don’t sell their agriculture product. Among sub-marginal farmers (0.05 to 0.5 Hectare), who
produced rice, 46 per cent of them completely and 25 per cent of them partially depends upon homegrown
rice. Those who cultivated wheat, 31 per cent of them completely and 66 per cent of them partially depends
upon homegrown produced. Thus majority of the smallholder’s household are not even able to fulfill their
own household food-grain requirement and purchasing it from market fully or partially, as a result, they are
vulnerable to price fluctuations. Therefore, the development policy on agriculture should concentrate not
only on increasing production must but small holders should be targeted in growth process. Controlling the
market price and intensifying food security net and focusing non-agricultural employment for cash earning
are the other available options which should be taken into account. Result from multivariate analysis also
confirms that the household, which has better possession on land and which depends upon cultivation is more
secured in case of food compared to the laborers household, it indicates that if the production of small-holders
increases, its benefit directly reaches to farmers in terms of food security.
