SECTION A
Essay
125 marks
Farming has lost the ability to be a source of subsistence for majority of farmers in India.
WRITE IN
90 min
1,000–1,200 words
Reading the topic
The statement claims that cultivation alone no longer feeds most Indian farm families. The examiner expects an essay that tests this against evidence on tiny holdings, falling farm income shares and rising non-farm dependence, and then asks whether farming can be made viable again or whether people must move out of it.
ThesisFor most smallholders farming has become one income stream among several rather than a livelihood, so policy must both raise farm viability and open exits into non-farm work.
Dimensions to cover
- 1Landholding: repeated subdivision has left most farmers with plots too small to support a family from crops alone, making fragmentation the root of the subsistence crisis
- 2Household income: surveys show wages and livestock often contribute as much as crops, proving that farm households already survive by diversifying away from cultivation
- 3Markets and prices: volatile prices, weak procurement outside a few crops and middlemen mean even good harvests can fail to cover costs, as onion and tomato price crashes show
- 4Ecology: falling groundwater in Punjab and Haryana and erratic monsoons raise risk and input costs, eroding the margins that small farmers depend on
- 5Policy: income support, insurance and MSP soften distress but do not change the size or productivity of holdings, so they treat symptoms of non-viability
- 6Structural transformation: nearly half the workforce stays in agriculture because manufacturing and services have not absorbed rural labour, trapping surplus workers on land
Counter-view
- Some argue farming still sustains crores of families and that high-value horticulture, dairy and FPOs show it can prosper. The essay should accept this but show such success depends on scale, market access and diversification, which most smallholders lack
Open and close
- Open: Open with a two-acre cotton grower in Vidarbha who drives an auto-rickshaw in the off-season and whose son works in a Pune factory, so the household eats from everything except the farm
- Close: Conclude that farming can again sustain families only if fewer people depend on it and those who remain farm larger, collectively organised and better-priced holdings
Where marks usually go
- Writing only about farmer suicides and loan waivers, turning the essay into a lament instead of testing the claim about subsistence
- Ignoring the non-farm side of the solution and proposing only MSP hikes, which misses why surplus labour is stuck on land
- Using stale income data without dates or claiming farm incomes have doubled without evidence
Examples that fit
- DataThe Agriculture Census 2015-16 found small and marginal holdings formed about 86 percent of all operational holdings, which explains why crop income alone rarely sustains a household.Agriculture Census 2015-16, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
- DataThe NSS Situation Assessment Survey for 2018-19 found the average agricultural household earned more from wages than from crop cultivation, a direct sign that farming is no longer the main subsistence source.NSS 77th Round, Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households, 2019 (MoSPI)
- CaseThe National Commission on Farmers chaired by M.S. Swaminathan recommended MSP at cost plus 50 percent and land and credit reforms, showing that viability was recognised as a structural problem.National Commission on Farmers reports, 2004-2006
- CurrentPM-KISAN, launched in 2019, pays eligible farmers Rs 6,000 a year, an admission by the state that cultivation needs a direct income top-up to sustain families.PM-KISAN scheme portal, Government of India
- CaseThe three farm laws of 2020 and their repeal in 2021 showed how deeply farmers fear losing assured procurement, the one buffer keeping farming viable for many.Farm Laws Repeal Act, 2021