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Rural Livelihoods in India

Most rural people in India earn their livelihood through farm activities like crop cultivation or non-farm activities such as fishing, animal husbandry and collecting forest produce. Nearly two-fifths of rural families are agricultural laborers who mostly have small or no land of their own. Small farmers often take loans for supplies and survive off-season due to crop failures or lack of rain leading some to migrate for work seasonally.

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Priya Chugh
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97 views1 page

Rural Livelihoods in India

Most rural people in India earn their livelihood through farm activities like crop cultivation or non-farm activities such as fishing, animal husbandry and collecting forest produce. Nearly two-fifths of rural families are agricultural laborers who mostly have small or no land of their own. Small farmers often take loans for supplies and survive off-season due to crop failures or lack of rain leading some to migrate for work seasonally.

Uploaded by

Priya Chugh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Chapter 8

Rural Livelihoods

Most of the rural people are engaged in farm activities to earn their livelihood
whereas others perform non-farm activities such as fishing, animal husbandry
and collection of forest produce.
Nearly two-fifth of all the rural families in India are agricultural labourers. They
are mostly landless or have small plots of land.
Most rural people, who do not have their own land, work on the fields of larger
landowners to earn their living.
In India, 80 per cent of farmers have small sized lands and only 20 per cent of
farmers cultivate most of the land.
Small farmers often need loans to purchase seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and
to survive in off-season.
Many farmers get caught in debt traps as a result of crop failures due to pest
attacks or lack of rains.
The large farmers sell their produce in the market and may start other businesses
as well.
Work on farms involves operations like preparing the land, sowing, weeding and
harvesting of crops.
Most of the small farmers, agricultural labourers, fishing families and craft
persons do not find enough work throughout the year.
This leads to migration of people to several distant places during a particular
season in search of work.
The fishing families also do not have work during the breeding season of fish and
survive by borrowing money.
Nurses, blacksmiths, weavers, washermen, teachers, barbers, cycle repair
mechanics are some of the other working people of rural areas.

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