The Crisis

Out of an estimated number of 22.15 million rural households in Uttar Pradesh, 77.4% are farmer households. Data revealed by the National Sample Survey Organization based on 59th round of NSS says over 24% of UP farmers (27% at all India level) did not like farming and felt that agriculture was not profitable.  41% farmers in UP (40% at all India level) felt that, given a choice, they would take up some other career. This indicates a serious problem wherein the main sufferers is suffering from low self-esteem and does not believe that what he is doing is worthwhile economically or even socially. In the social hierarchy, farming as a profession now is seen as considerably low in the social order.

• Households with one hectare or less land accounted for 74% of all farmer households and about 39% of them were indebted.
• Agriculture growth rate has dropped from 4.8% to 2%. About 60% of the population depends on agriculture whereas the contribution of agriculture to the GDP is about 18%.
• About 75% of the families are marginal with average land holding of up to 0.5 acres. And about 25% are landless families, who only depend on agriculture-based wage work; some of them take land on a lease/sharing basis for crop purposes.
• With personal land and agriculture-based wage work combined, farmers are still only able to live off of their produce profits for 4 -5 months.
• Meanwhile, the wage availability in agriculture is very limited. The current norm is less than 100 days of employment at Rs.150-200 for men and Rs.100-150 for women. High populations and small land holdings further aggravate the situation. Also, mechanization of agriculture work has adversely affected the wage employment status of the area.
• The farmers we work with do not have access to mainstream markets, and thus will be forced to sell their products at much lower rates
• Even in areas where 56% of the population is literate, there is only a 7% employment rate due to barriers in accessing potential employers.