LARGE versus small farms
Agricultural yield decrease in Tamil Nadu, India
“Unsustainable lifestyles and unacceptable poverty should
become problems of the past, to achieve harmony with nature
and with each other” - Gandiji
Bachelor Thesis IDS Tamil Nadu Joël Boele
Student number: 10254536 University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences Supervisor: Johny Stephen
Second reader: Leo de Klerk 2013-2014 semester 2
Abstract
Farm sizes, based on farmer estimation in five villages in the area of Cheyyur, Tamil Nadu, are classified as small, medium or large within this research. 93.3 % of the farmers experienced a yield decrease for the main crops in this area, groundnut and rice. All the farmers attributed the decrease in yield to the unpredictable lesser rains. Only two farmers did not experience yield decrease, both owning about 7 acres of land, classified here as medium sized. Whilst conventional literature on productivity predicts that larger farmers have more coping strategies to environmental stresses, this research shows otherwise. A four-week fieldwork, and thirty household surveys and structured interviews are analysed to explain farming procedures and examine agricultural productivity based on agricultural inputs and outputs. Since farmers in this area are dependent on monsoon rains, if rains intend to decrease in the next five years, farmers prospect that farming won’t be possible anymore.
Table of contents
1. Introduction p. 4
1.1 Background on agricultural India p. 4
1.2 Objectives p. 5
1.3 Research questions and hypotheses p. 6
1.4 Thesis outline p. 7
2. Research Area p. 8
2.1 Cheyyur Taluk p. 8
2.2 Focus villages p. 11
3. Context and theoretical framework p. 14
3.1 Ecosystem services p. 14 3.2 Farm classification p. 17 3.3 Agricultural productivity p. 20 3.4 Environmental stresses p. 23 3.5 Food security p. 25 4. Methodology p. 27 4.1 Research method p. 27 4.2 Research outline p. 27 4.3 Sampling method p. 29 4.4 Productivity Indicators p. 30 5. Data analysis p. 31
5.1 Household survey analysis p. 31
5.2 Variables on farm level p. 32
5.3 Hypothesis control p. 36
5.4 Grow cycles of main crops p. 38
6. Conclusions p. 40
7. Limitations and discussion p. 42
8. References p. 46
1. Introduction
1.1 Background on agricultural India
In the late sixties and early seventies the green revolution in India kicked in. This was due to major technological breakthroughs based on high yielding seeds, adequate and systematic irrigation and appropriate use of chemicals as pesticides and insecticides (NIOS, n.d.).
India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) regarding agriculture and its allied sector hit 151.8 billion US dollars in the fiscal year1 of 2012 (FY12), accounting for 24.1 per cent of India’s annual growth rate (IBEF, 2014). Around 70 per cent of India’s population earn their livelihood from agriculture (NIOS, n.d).
The subcontinent of India holds 179.9 million hectares of agricultural land, the second largest area in the world. At the same time India is the largest producer of pulses, tea, cashew, jute and milk and the second largest for wheat, rice, fruits, vegetables, sugarcane, cotton and oilseeds in the world (IBEF, 2014). India’s geographical conditions account for wide variations in climate, containing plain areas, fertile soils, and a long growth season. A wide variety of crops are found in India, due to the appearance of tropical and temperate climates (NIOS, n.d.). Accounting for 2.07 per cent of the global agricultural trade in 2012, India is among the 10 leading exporters of agricultural products (IBEF, 2014).
Rice production is around 105.3 million tonnes (MT) and total food grains are estimated at 259.31 MT in FY12. These are crops meant for human consumption, such as rice, wheat, maize and millet. Not only has the domestic demand of agricultural commodities and related products gone up due to the increasing population, a wealthier population also increases its consumption (IBEF, 2014). Although India’s population is growing, production of major crops such as rice and wheat has been stagnating, forcing a gap between demand and supply (NIOS, n.d.). On the other hand export of these crops has increased due to higher external demands and an increased participation in the global economy. To increase the production of rice, wheat and pulses to meet these growing demands, the 1 April 1st 2011 to march 31st 2012
government of India launched the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) in October 2007 (IBEF, 2014).
Although the green revolution improved agricultural productivity, it caused a loss of soil nutrients due to intensive farming, as the same crops were grown every
season repeatedly, thus causing soil exhaustion. Another downfall of the green revolution is the depletion of fresh ground water, due to extensive irrigation and use of chemical fertilizers (NIOS, n.d.). Although efforts to stop land degradation are being made, many farmers are unable to adopt new land-use practices that are not degrading their croplands, causing a reduced agricultural output (Asian
Productivity Organization, 2004). Small farmers especially are in disadvantage, due to the increased use of unaffordable farming inputs.
1.2 Objectives
In 2008 The World Bank stated that slow agricultural growth in India is an alarming problem, as two third of India’s population depends on this rural employment. Agricultural practices in India are economically and environmentally unsustainable. Furthermore yields of agricultural commodities are very low, due to poorly
maintained irrigation systems and lack of extension services, among other reasons. This is mainly caused by poor infrastructure, bad roads, excessive regulation and primitive market forms (The Worldbank, 2008).
Three years later The World Bank (2011) speaks of an economic growth for the world’s largest democracy that has accelerated the last decade. To continue this rise, it is important for India to have a productive, competitive and diversified agricultural sector (Deininger, K., Byerlee, D., Lindsay, J., Norton, A., Selod, H., & Stickler, M., 2011).
Productivity of a farmer can be examined by its inputs and outputs (Altieri, 2009). Therefore, it is relevant to indicate the inputs and outputs of rural farmers in India. The research area of the four-week fieldwork at the foundation of this thesis is found in the Kanchipuram district, in the north of Tamil Nadu state. Tamil Nadu is a major rice producing state in India, as rice requires humid and hot growing
conditions, with average temperatures between 22 °C up to 32 °C. Most suitable are clay and loam soils, usually present in plain areas (Mariappan & Mohana,
2011).
The taluk2 of the research villages is Cheyyur, in the south of the Kanchipuram
district. Three villages, all experiencing the difficulties of decreasing rainfall have been examined. The villages are Chitarkadu, Vilangadu and Vedal. The focus during this research is on the inputs and outputs of farms in the face of agricultural productivity. Yield decreases are prevalent through all villages, but not evenly distributed between large, small and medium sized farmers3.
This thesis will answer the question what the differences between large and small farms are concerning yield decrease due to lesser rains.
1.3 Research questions and hypotheses
The main research question for this thesis is stated as following: How do farmers of Cheyyur cope with environmental stresses?
To answer this main question three subquestions need to be answered. First How do farmers differ compared to each other in the research area of Cheyyur? This question focuses on identifying how different farmers farm, such as main crop that is cultivated, livestock possession, and mainly, size of cropland. After identifying what large, medium and small farms are, the second subquestion can be posed: What are the differences between large and small farmers in Cheyyur in terms of productivity, based on their yield? Finally the last subquestion is stated: How do these different farmers cope with environmental stresses?
Since rains in drier areas have been decreasing due to climate change, draughts are more prevalent (IPCC, 2013). Conventional literature states that small
landowners have fewer resources to react in times of bad harvests. Also, small farmers have fewer resources to react in times of droughts and will therefore have a larger decrease in yield, compared to large farmers (Altieri, 2009).
Considering this, one would expect that small landowners own livestock more frequently than large landowners, because it is a way to divide their capital and livestock can be sold in times of bad harvest and financial deficit (Altieri, 2009). 2 Taluks are the subdivisions of a district in India that contains several villages. Usually Taluks are named after the main village of the Taluk (thefreedictionary.com).
3Small, medium and large farmer account for size of a farmers’ cropland, the division between small medium and large will be identified later.
Also it is more lucrative for large landowners to produce rice, because it is less effective for paddy to be grown on small parcels of land (Niroula & Thapa, 2007). Therefore, more large landowners will grow rice as opposed to small landowners.
1.4 Thesis outline
This thesis will start with some primary information on the research area, such as climate variables, land use indication and census data on the villages of research. Followed by a theoretical framework in chapter 3, that contains main theories and a few sub theories. The framework is based on the relationship between ecosystem services, food security, productivity and agricultural in- and output.
Before analysing the data obtained from the four-week fieldwork at the foundation of this research, the methodology of this research and its fulfilment are described in chapter 4. Data is analysed in quantitatively and qualitatively in chapter 5.
Concluding the conclusion in chapter 6 will contain preliminary conclusions obtained from the fieldwork and an overall conclusion to answer the influence of small and large farmers on yield decrease. Finally limitations of this research and its fieldwork will be discussed in chapter 7. In chapter 8 tables used for data analysis are presented.
2.1 Cheyyur Taluk
Kanchipuram, in the north of Tamil Nadu, is defined by its agricultural productivity. This is due to sufficient irrigation by normal rainfall (1942 mm) and the high number of tube and bore wells in the district. The main occupation in Kanchipuram is found in the agricultural sector. As 47% of the population is participating, the population mainly sustains on agriculture and allying activities (Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012). Paddy is the main crop, followed by groundnut, cereals, sugarcane, millet and pulses (Mariappan & Mohana, 2011).
Recent development of the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) by the government has depleted the agricultural land and its productivity in areas as Cheyyur. SEZ was established for the benefit of the society, to create industrialist areas close to Chennai4. Chennai has an upcoming harbour, airport and the possibility of cheap labour (Mariappan & Mohana, 2011). Within this research the focus is on the Cheyyur Taluk, as shown in the map below, in the south of the Kanchipuram district.
Figure 2: Kanchipuram district and its Talukas (mapsofindia.com).
Agricultural land is the biggest land use of the Cheyyur Taluk (48.58 %), as shown in the table below, listed with the other land uses of the area in 2012 (Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012).
Table 1: Land use Cheyyur according to satellite data (Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012.
Category Area (ha) Percentage (%)
Vegetation 6313 13.48 Agriculture 22744 48.58 Barren 4808 10.27 Water body 12868 27.49 Settlements 87 0.19 Total 46820 100.00
Geographically the area of Cheyyur can be divided into lagoons, plains, forests, coastal belts, low hills, basins, lakes and tanks. Sandy loam is present during post monsoon and during monsoon, creating a very fertile soil for agriculture (Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012).
Climate
Rainfall patterns in the area of Cheyyur are determined by the southwest and northeast monsoon, creating a hot climate with high humidity readings. Due to a strong sea breeze during the summer months heat is substantially reduced. Four distinct seasons can be indicated: summer (March to May), southwest monsoon (June and July), northeast monsoon (September to November) and winter
(December to February) (Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012). According to the UNEP Atlas of desertification (1992) the area can be indicated as dry sub-humid to semi-arid. Monthly temperature, rain and humidity for 2012 are shown in the table below. Due to this climatic conditions three distinct agricultural seasons are
present: kharif, the summer season, rabi the winter season, and zaid (March to June) in between. Rice is a kharif crop, and wheat a rabi crop (NIOS, n.d.).
Table 2 Monthly weather conditions Cheyyur in 2012 (IMD, 2012). Month Temperature (oC) Rainfall
(mm)
Rainy days Relative Humidity (%)
Max. Min
January 30.0 21.4 -- -- 70
Month Temperature (oC) Rainfall
(mm)
Rainy days Relative Humidity (%) Max. Min March 33.3 23.8 -- -- 70 April 34.9 26.4 19.4 0.9 70 May 37.6 28.5 14.4 1.7 58 June 37.3 27.0 87.2 4.6 62 July 36.5 26.9 65.7 7.4 59 August 35.7 25.9 32.7 9.0 66 September 33.9 25.6 129.6 7.1 74 October 32.3 24.7 414.5 10.2 80.5 November 30.2 23.6 232.3 10.4 84 December 30.0 22.3 57.7 5.6 72
Total per year 1055.1 57.2
Average per year
33.89 24.86 69.58
May and June are generally the hottest months, with a mean temperature of 36.7 °C. December and January are the coolest, with a mean temperature between 21 and 22 °C.
During years of good monsoon annual rainfall in the research area can be around 1055 mm. The majority of the rain falls during the northeast monsoon (Mariappan & Mohana , 2011; Coastal Tamil Nadu Power Ltd., 2012). Although humidity is generally high through the whole year, during the northeast monsoon period it is at its highest, ranging from 72 to 84 per cent (See table 2 for data on 2012).
2.2 Focus villages
The three focus villages during the fieldwork period and some census data of 2001 are listed in the table below. Vedal accommodates the highest and Vilangadu the lowest number of households. Only a small part of all three villages’ population is below 6 years old in 2011.
Villages No. of Households Total Populatio n Male Populatio n Female Populatio n Populatio n < 6 years Sex Rati o Chitharkadu5 395 1782 871 911 182 1046 Vedal 513 2338 1187 1151 234 970 Vilangadu 144 636 324 312 68 963
During the fieldwork period of four weeks household surveys were conducted in thirty households spread through these three different villages. The census data described below is obtained from a census excel file on about the area of Cheyyur in 2011, received by Dr. Ramachandra Bhatta from the Anna University, Chennai. See also figure 2 below for spatial distribution of these three villages throughout the research area. Cheyyur is indicated at the map as well, since this is the main village of the Cheyyur Taluk.
5 Palayur and Taneer Poudel belong to the revenue village Chitarkadu. Only one farmer was villager of Kokkaranthangal, his farmland was close to Chitarkadu’s farmland (See section 4.3 sampling method).
Table 3: the three main focus villages (Indian Government, 2001).
Census Vilangadu
Vilangadu, about eight kilometres inland from Cheyyur, experienced a slight decrease in population, from 672 in 1991, to 593 in 2011. Population density decreased as well, from 128 to 113 inhabitants per square kilometre from 1991 to 2011. The percentage of cultivators has been stable between 2001 and 2011, after having dropped from 50% in 1991 to 35 % in 2001. The villagers barely (less than 5 %) participate in household industries or other labour.
There was a high percentage of non-workers in 2011; about 31 % in Vilangadu, this has decreased between 1991 and 2011.
Census Vedal
The village of Vedal (11,24 square kilometres) is situated south of Cheyyur, about 5 kilometres inland. Since 1991 the total population of Vedal has increased from 2049 to 2427, resulting in a population density of 220 inhabitants per square kilometre in 2011. The percentage of cultivators decreased to 36 % of the villagers in 2011, as it was 41 per cent in 1991. Zero per cent of the villagers works in household industries; this was two per cent in 2001 and 1 per cent in 1991. Eight per cent of the villagers have other jobs.
Census Chitarkadu
Chitarkadu is situated 4 kilometres north of Vedal, with an area of 9.45 square kilometres. Since 1991 population has somewhat increased from 1779 in 1991 to 1859 in 2011, consisting of 450 households, population density in 2011 was 197 inhabitants per square kilometre. While in 1991 per cent 45% were cultivators, in 2011 this was only 31, after a small increase in 2001, when 48% were cultivators. Zero per cent participates in household industries, 30 per cent is employed
otherwise.
3. Theoretical framework
3.1 Introduction to theoretical framework
Agriculture is defined by its agricultural productivity. Agricultural inputs define agricultural productivity in ratio to the outputs (Dharmasiri, 2009). Inputs can be divided in those added to the cropland by the farmer himself and features of these inputs due to influences as soil properties and weather. The theories and concepts further explained in this chapter will explain the relationships between the different
concepts shown in figure 4.
Figure 4: Scheme showing the relationships between the different concepts within this chapter
Agricultural Productivity O u tp u t In pu t - Water - Seeds - Fertilizer - Pesticides - Labour - Knowledge - Size of land: LARGE vs small - Soil properties
- Capital availability Influences
Plant waste - Feed for
livestock - Compost Different irrigation methods:
- Ponds -Pumps - Groundwater Weather Achieve CROPS=FOOD Food Security
The concepts in the scheme establish in agricultural ecosystems; ecosystems created by farmers to maximize the output a farmer can get from his croplands. In this way agriculture provides ecosystem services, but also is dependent on
ecosystem services, the focus of my first main theory. Before going into my second main theory, a prior theory, which I will call a subtheory is taken into account; concepts on farm size and different forms of farming. Based on the debate of small and large farms in the face of agricultural productivity. Followed by the second main theory: agricultural productivity and the inputs and outputs of farming. Followed by the second subtheory explaining the implications for farmers due to environmental stresses. Food security will be the final subtheory within this theoretical framework, found at the top of the scheme above shown in figure 3.
The past few decades humans have changed ecosystems around the world faster and more extensively than ever in history. “ An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the non-living environment, interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems. “ (p. 49, UNEP, n.d).
Changes to these complex systems are mainly caused by a rocketing population growth and the human demand for a better livelihood. We require more food, water, fuels and other resources, resulting in a decrease of biodiversity (UNEP, n.d.; Virgin, I., Bhagavan, M., Komen, J., Kullaya, A., Louwaars, N., Morris,E. J., Okori P., &. Persle, G., 2007). The impact of human activity is known to have major effects on the resilience (equilibrium) of an ecosystem. In other words; the capacity to respond to disturbances, the resistance to damage due to for example
pesticides, degradation, depletion and floods, and the recovery after such influences (UNEP, 2011).
Changes made to our ecosystems are in practice only for a net gain in economic growth and a better human livelihood. The benefits people obtain from ecosystems are called ecosystem services (UNEP, n.d.; NIOS, n.d.).
Agricultural ecosystems
Special anthropogenic ecosystems are agricultural ecosystems, established by agriculture, providing a wide range of ecosystem services. Intensification of food production is linked to the decline of biological ecosystems and thereby their services. Agricultural production utilizes seventy per cent of the global fresh water resources, while at the same time exploiting our ecosystems on many levels. Agricultural ecosystems are established and maintained by farmers in an
optimizing way to create provision services such as food. To maintain provisioning services such as food, an agricultural ecosystem depends on other supporting services such as water provisions and regulation services such as pollination. On the other hand an agricultural system provides regulating services and supporting services itself, next to cultural services, creating benefits as climate regulation and agricultural productivity (UNEP, 2011) (See figure 5).
Figure 5: Agricultural Ecosystem and ecosystem services it uses and produces (Gordon, L.J., Finlayson, C.M., & Falkenmark, M., 2010).
In this way agricultural practices have influences on ecosystems, while at the same time ecosystems influence our agricultural production and practices. If an
agricultural ecosystem is managed correctly it contributes to an improved human wellbeing (UNEP, 2011). As agriculture is an essential part of the human wellbeing (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008), if these ecosystems are not properly managed and maintained, degradation of certain ecosystem services decrease our overall wellbeing, mainly affecting the poorer strata of our society (UNEP, 2011). Hence the increased agricultural production at the expense of our agricultural ecosystems is a matter of high concern (Dale & Polasky, 2007).
As agriculture increases the provisioning ecosystem services, it decreases the regulating and cultural ecosystems due to cultivation activities. In the face of sustainability for future generations it is important to control the impacts on
ecosystems that cause irreversible changes and possible an environmental crisis (UNEP, 2011).
One of the most prevalent problems due to extensive agriculture is the depletion of fresh water; decreasing in quantity due to extended irrigation, decreasing in quality due to the increased use of chemicals (Dale & Polasky, 2007).
Farming can be seen as an open system, based around a feedback loop. Farming uses a wide variety of input and outputs and inputs and outputs change all the time. This feedback loop can have negative and positive results on inputs and outputs. The results these feedback processes mainly depends on the farming techniques on farm; the procedure (FAO). The feedback link between outputs and inputs can cause effects for environmental inputs as for farmer inputs as shown in figure 6.
Figure 6: Feedback system between inputs and outputs based on Rawson (2000).
Inputs Procedure: ploughing, seeding, fertilising, irrigating, weeding, maintaining Outputs Feedback = Incorporated output: profit, animal feed, seeds, know-how Environmental inputs Climate- Weather: Temperature, humidity, sunshine, rain, wind Farmland: soil, slope, relief, drainage Farmer inputs
Personal: capital, labour,
skills
Material: seeds, fertilizer,
irrigation, pests and weed control, machinery Negative outputs = adverse effe cts Soil erosion Yield loss Water degradation Positive Outputs = requested Crops Hay and straw
3.2 Farm classification
Most farmers represented in this research precede subsistence farming, producing mainly for their own consumption on small and fragmented parcels of land, using primitive and simple cultivation techniques. Commercial farmers on the other hand are farmers that produce only cash crops for the market with the extensive use of inputs as irrigation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides and HYV (high yielding varieties). Another form of farming is plantation farming, whereby only one
cash crop is grown, for example tea, coffee, spices and bananas. Furthermore sections of farms where only fruits and vegetables are grown on a small scale, are called horticulture. Some farmers not only grow crops, but also herd animals (NIOS, n.d.), this is very common in the Cheyyur area. Not only are there different forms of farming also scale has a big influence on farming procedures.
The agricultural census of 2010-2011 by the Indian agricultural department indicates five classes of size for Indian agriculture (Department of Agriculture, 2014).
Table 4 Indication of farm size classes according to Department of Agriculture India (2014).
Group Size (hectares) Size (acres)6
Marginal Less than 1.0 Less than 2.47
Small 1 till 2 2.47 till 4.94
Semi-Medium 2 till 4 4.94 till 9.88
Medium 4 till 10 9.88 till 24.7
Large More than 10 More than 24.7
During my fieldwork farmers indicated their farm sizes in acres, so in the table above hectares as indicated by the Indian agricultural department are converted to acres. Comparing with the data of my research, one could indicate that according to the five-class system, farmers in the Cheyyur sample fall in the groups marginal, semi-medium, large, and most of them in the category small. Small farms have been defined by the FAO (1978) as following:
Household units that make most management decisions, control most of the farm labour supply and normally much of the capital as well. (..) A more precise definition of small farms is that they are complex interrelationships between animals, crops and farming families, involving small land holdings and minimum resources of labour and capital, from which small farmers may or may not be able to derive a regular and adequate supply of food or an acceptable income and standard of living. (FAO, 1993, chapter 2) India accounts for 23 per cent of the world’s small farms, with a total area of around 88.78 lakh7 hectares8 (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008). With the focus of developing countries on food security their agricultural sectors have been 6 1 hectare is 2.47 acres.
7 1 lakh is 100000 (traditional Indian numbering system).
concentrating on monocultures. Reshaping agriculture causes impacts and risks for a sustainable food supply, the environment and human wellbeing. Despite most literature and conventional insights that claim that small family farms are
unproductive. The Green Revolution, forcing crop production to increase and farms to grow, is proven unsustainable. It damaged ecosystems, enforced climate
change and mainly produced benefits for farmers who were already wealthy. The New Green revolution caused countries in Asia to be more dependent on imported agricultural inputs and unaffordable plant seeds (Altieri, 2009).
Nevertheless mall and traditional farms still exist in rural places of the developing world, farms that can become more productive without losing their sustainability. This is at the foundation of food sovereignty:
The right of each nation or region to maintain and develop their capacity to produce basic food crops with the corresponding productive and cultural diversity. The emerging concept of food sovereignty emphasizes farmers’ access to land, seeds and water while focusing on local autonomy, local markets, local production-consumption cycles, energy and technological sovereignty, and farmer-to-farmer networks. (Alterieri, 2009, p. 104)
Traditional small farms account for twenty per cent of the world’s food supply. Although large farms can produce more yield per acre than a small farm that grows more than just one crop, productivity per unit area of small farms is higher.
Polyculture scales down losses, due to more efficient use of inputs as water and nutrients, and have fewer issues with diseases, pests and weeds. This is
maintained due to less intensive use of resources, creating more profit per unit input. Since traditional small farmers grow a variety of crops, they depend on hybrid seeds instead of genetically modified seeds. Hybrid seeds are created by cross-pollination of plants that are closely related and therefore having uniform characteristics, while the best features dominate. This was one of the main contributors to the rise of traditional agricultural output (Alterieri, 2009).
An example would be ‘Ponni’, a hybrid rice variety, developed by the Agricultural University of Tamil Nadu, suitable for climatic conditions of the area and closely related to traditional varieties, while it demands less fertilizer and is mostly pest resistant (Hindu, 2011).
GMO’s on the other hand, are a risk for plants’ genetic diversity and cause ecological failures, as pests become resistant and farmers dependent on GMO seeds (Alterieri, 2009).
According to Altieri (2008) small farmers should be supported for five reasons. First they are important in the face of food security. Also small farms are more
productive and resource efficient than monocultures.
Even so small farms are more traditional and bio diverse, which aims towards a more sustainable future. Furthermore, biodiversity on small farms is not focussed on GMO’s. Finally smaller farms with more biodiversity have the ability to bind carbon in soils and therefore stabilize climate change.
Small farms tend to have less degrading effect on ecosystems and therefore their ecosystem services.
3.3 Agricultural productivity
Centuries of experience and generations of inherited farming developed complex and locally suited agricultural systems to manage local conditions. Interactions with environment are based on self-reliance, knowledge due to experience and
adaptations to available resources of the area, without high levels of technology (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
Although productivity in agricultural practices in India has increased over the last decades, as already addressed by Hayami in 1969, big gaps between developed and less developed countries are still present. This is caused by differences in traditional inputs, as labour, land, fertilizer and machinery and on the other hand by nonconventional inputs as education and research (Hayami, 1969).
Rosegrant and Evenson (1992) also mention a relatively rapid growth in yields per hectare, starting in the 1960s, due to the adoption of modern rice and wheat varieties.
Kumar and Mittal (2006) state that the agricultural productivity, attained during the 1980s was not sustained during the 1990s, challenging researchers to increase productivity with the use of improved technologies in a sustainable way.
The sustainability issue concerning productivity is emerging fast. The
characteristics of the post-green revolution are high use of inputs and decelerating total productivity growth (Kumar and Mittal, 2006). This causes unsustainable effects on natural resources, with an increased effect on environmental
degradation and climate change, having effects on the production of food. Lower productivity is mainly caused by land degradation, due to the incorporation of nature factors with human-induced activities (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008). Over the past years the debate around large and small farms concerning food production has risen. The focus within this debate is on agricultural efficiency. The ideal about rural farming has been that small farms are more productive; this was proved by data from 1970 till 1980s. But no coherent methods to measure costs of hired labour and family were implemented and also this data was conducted from a time period before the agricultural reforms in the 1990s due to mechanisation (Foster and Rosenzweig, 2011).
Foster and Rosenzweig (2011) state that larger farms have a higher profitability, due to scale dependent mechanisation, lower capital costs and better protection from adverse income shocks.
Rosset (2000) focuses on the biological productivity of small farms. Productivity is the output per unit input, while biological productivity is the output per unit acre. Biological productivity is higher by small farms, as they integrate for example livestock and crops. Also the labour quality intents to be better, since families are
highly depending on their lands, better care for the soil is taken. Different factors as size, styles of management and the relationship between human and land
therefore create differences in biological productivity (Rosset, 2000).
The concept of multifunctional farms approaches the idea that farming has multiple roles in our society, as it also provides public goods and services9. Integration of small scale farming into the conventional food chains, can support a
reconfiguration of farming activities, encouraging a wider variety of activities. This leads to an increased involvement in the local economy. As such, this produces both expanded income sources and less dependency on commodity prices (Darnfolder, 2005).
Due to modernization, adaptive strategies have been utilized to reduce the costs of farming. This can be done by reallocation of agricultural activities, increasing the commodisation. On the other hand agricultural specialisation is created due to the increased scale of farming, use of external capital, specific techniques and expert prescriptions. This results in a situation where the farmer only produces raw
materials for the agrio-industrial food chains, a position that is highly depending on product prices and production costs (Darnfolder, 2005).
But, in a rural development model, farmers seek to reduce their dependency on external markets. This can be achieved by diversification of farm activities within the local economy or on farm level (Darnfolder, 2005).
According to the modernisation model, intensification and scale increase of farming is necessary to increase agricultural profits. However this is constrained by limited rainfall, irrigation deficits and limited options for purchasing land. Three broad strategies are proposed for increased productivity at the rural farm level. These are deepening, broadening and regrounding (Darnfolder, 2005).
The deepening strategy transforms, expands and redirects agricultural activities to other actors, so that products with a higher value-added per unit are created. This can be done by shorter food supply chains and innovations for food quality .The broadening strategy uses non-agricultural activities located on the interface of society, community, landscape and biodiversity. These are activities as agro-tourism, landscape and nature management, energy production or other services. The last strategy to increase agricultural productivity is regrounding. This is the restructuring of farm resources. The strategy is implemented by redeployment of 9 See section on argricultural ecosystems
human resources or by the re-use of material resources of the farm (Darnfolder, 2005).
3.4 Environmental stresses
Agricultural productivity is endangered by the results of climate change. But not only does climate change have severe influences on agriculture, agriculture itself also contributes to the emission of greenhouse gasses, due to deforestation, fertilizer use, wetland conversion and rice paddies. At the same time agricultural activities change the hydrological cycle and reduce sinks for carbon. Important climatic variables concerning farming are rainfall and temperature, possibly affecting agricultural production and food security. Hazards in the research area include severer and frequenter droughts (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
Small farmers intent to cope with climatic extremes better and are more prepared as they apply more drought tolerant varieties and are more focussed on local circumstances and seasonality. With the diversified poly agricultural system as foundation, since they do not just grow one crop or one season. However, climate models predict greater implications for small farmers than for large farmers
(Alterieri, 2009).
Coping strategies for rural farmers are mostly locally based, as their focus is local and knowledge mostly indigenous. They are more vulnerable due to lower
incomes, limited mitigation possibilities and therefore high reliance on agriculture, while even slight changes in climatic variables can have major impacts on their livelihoods. Although if managed in a sustainable way, diversity and coping abilities of small and traditional farms can contribute to climate change mitigation, so that the effects and rate of climate change can be limited. Resulting a more resilient way of farming, that provides a buffer for environmental stresses as extreme weather events (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
Especially small farmers and in particularly those that depend on rain fed
agriculture are expected to experience high decreases in yield, as prospected by most climate models. Significant effects due to higher temperatures, will be soil heating, causing loss of organic matter in the soil, which will affect the soil fertility.
Drier soils cause roots to have less nestling abilities, withholds decomposition and increase susceptibility to wind erosion. If temperatures are on the rise, more favourable conditions for insects may cause pests to be more prevalent and possibly colonize new crops. Also due to increased temperature, and thereby humidity, pathogens are expected to be more severe. This causes increased losses due to plant diseases, complications in plant disease management and implications in spatial distributions of these diseases. Expanded invasions of pests and diseases will increase the application of pesticides to control these, at the same time increasing agricultural environmental side effects and input costs for agriculture (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
Since many small farmers conduct a polyculture, in the case of Cheyyur, double cropping, whereby after harvest of the first crop, the second crop is planted, the build up for extensive insect pests is somewhat prevented.
Especially for farm households, confronted with challenging agro climatic
conditions it is important to cope with continual fluctuations in yield. Traditionally based agriculture contains diversified cropping, so that high levels of environmental stress have limited influences on productivity (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
In India many farmers conduct dryland10 farming, whereby the farmer depends on natural rains (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2005). Cheyyur can be seen as a semi-arid area. Defined by at least one month without rain, and rainfall amounts between 500-1000 mm per year. Causing water deficits, due to high Potential evapotranspiration (PET) rates; if annual PET rates are more than annual rain amounts water stress and drought will be prevalent. Farmers use traditional water harvesting systems to take advantage of the limited amounts of rains, in Tamil Nadu this is the eri, tanks that provided water for the area after monsoons, as these recharge the groundwater table and accommodate water for drinking and irrigation purposes (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
Since farmers are experts on their own crops, soils, farming circumstances and capital, farmers can play a major role in improving and maintaining their agro ecosystems and producing food (Altieri & Koohafkan, 2008).
10 Drylands are areas with an aridity index less than 0.65 Aridity index is calculated according to UNEP (1992) through dividing the average annual precipitation by the mean annual precipitation..
3.5 Food security
Recently stated by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, is that food production needs to increase fifty per cent by 2030. The world’s population is increasing and its food consumption rocketing due to changing consuming pattern, increasing stresses on food our supply. This puts further pressure on food
producing croplands and the farmers. This fact accompanied with changing weather patterns due to climate change and the degradation of ecosystems, lead to an uncertain food production in the future (UNEP, 2011).
Predominantly, agricultural intensification of an area requires higher levels of inputs of agriculture that mostly focus on short-term benefits. These input changes force long-term impacts on many ecosystems, as mentioned before.
Although the higher price of food is increasing rapidly due to the gap between demand and supply, smaller and less capital-intensive farmers, like in India, won’t benefit from this due to the simultaneous increase in price of the agricultural inputs. Moreover intensification of agriculture may cause expansion of agriculture trough larger scale farming, which means increased mono cropping and intensified inputs (UNEP, 2011).
Therefore a sustainable method of food production is needed, creating a greener economy. For example reducing the intensive cultivation of land without
conservation of the soil. A green economy can be defined as enhancing economic growth in continuity, without associated ecological and social harm. Within this economic idea, food security is very important; the physical, economic and social access to a balanced diet, clean drinking water, safe sanitation and primary health care. ‘Green’ agriculture can be created with the help of integrated pest
management, justified nutrient supply and natural resource management. Therefore it is important to arrange irrigation properly and limit the use of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides (Swaminathan, 2011).
Recently the (in) direct relationship between land degradation and changes in land use and cover (LULC) has been taken into account, due to the intensification of
agriculture (Mariappan & Mohana, 2011).
Even with the large expansion of irrigation infrastructure, two third of the total crop area still depends upon unpredictable monsoon rains; uncertainties increasing due to climate change. Of biggest concern is India’s’ food security, while its population and its demands are growing rapidly and agricultural challenges growing (NIOS, n.d.).
Food security is established according to the World Food Summit in 1996 when: “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2008, p. 1).
Lot of research has been done on how to create food security and which type of farming can create this in the most sustainable and fast way.
4. Methodology
4.1 Research method
This research concerns a descriptive research design, to find correlations between the different size of farms and their yield perception, and to observe and identify the procedure of farming in the research area. Indicated is which variables influence the productivity of farmers, but without changing the research
environment. This research has a more explanatory design, since it seeks to find correlations between variables, as yield of farmers is exanimated (Bryman, 2012). This case study focuses on the research unit farmers in three main villages in the area of Cheyyur. The problem with such a research is the extern validity, which makes it hard to generalise certain conclusions of the fieldwork outside the research area.
At the foundation of this thesis was is the four-week fieldwork in the Cheyyur area, whereby data is collected outside of a workplace, involving a wide range of
methods to collect data. Used are short open interviews, direct observation, structured interviews and surveys, to create both a qualitative and quantitative dimension in the research data.
After the fieldwork period was completed, preliminary conclusions could be written. Based on these conclusions literature could be reviewed, to identify the different theories assisting these conclusions.
4.2 Research outline
During the research in the Cheyyur area the focus was mainly on getting qualitative information to obtain insight into the procedure of farming and factors concerned with farming in this area. The fieldwork of four weeks started of with an observation week, during which the research area was defined. In this period of orientation a general outline of the situation concerning farming was created by short open interviews with random farmers in different villages of the research area. The villages visited during this first week, were chosen by a census issued by Professor
Bhatta from the Anna University. This census contains data on the area of
Cheyyur, whereby one sheet focuses on the percentages of cultivators per village. During this first orientation week villages with the highest cultivation rate were visited. Also it was important to identify the important people in the area, as
councillors from villages. After this week, more specific, structured interviews were prepared, with the right questions and items for my specific research. Respondents were selected randomly in the village of research, according to one requirement; one has to be a farmer.
During the next two weeks, structured interviews were conducted as well as short interviews with councillors and a lot of observations were done.
All research information in the research area was spoken in Tamil, therefore a male student of 23 years old translated for me from Tamil to English and back. The last week was used to fill the gaps and deepen out some earlier indicated
information. Observations
Observations during the fieldwork period were random and therefore unstructured. The focus during these observations was on the different parts of the farming procedure, as harvesting groundnuts or watering the crops.
Structured interviews
The data collection during this fieldwork is done according to the survey method: a random sample of the population is studied, with the use of structured interviews, a kind of questionnaires. The translator asks the respondent, in this case a farmer, questions verbally, in presence of me, the researcher (Bryman, 2012).
The questionnaire started with a household survey, followed by open-ended and close-ended questions. Closed questions provide quantitative data, possible to process in statistical programs as SPSS. While open questions provide quantitative data, as respondents answer in their own words, and usually explain their answers (Bryam, 2012). The questions were mainly open.
For every respondent a new sheet of questions in English was used, verbally translated by my translator to Tamil and posed to the respondent.
4.3 Sampling method
At the end of the first week of fieldwork three villages were selected: Vedal, Vilangadu and Chitarkadu. The choice for the three main villages was built on the high percentage of farmers, and observed differences; Vedal seemed poorer than Vilangadu regarding its infrastructure, houses, and the high amount of tractors present in Vilangadu. Chitarkadu had one main village accompanied by smaller farmer hamlets. Also the councillors of all three villages were very open to the research and able to help us with defining different farmers. The same accounted for the villagers self; if they are open and welcoming they will probably be more honest while answering the questions and take more time to answer them too. The farmer from Kokkaranthangal has his farmland in the area of Chitarkadu and is therefore indicated as a farmer from Chitarkadu on spatial basis during data
analysis. Farming conditions are also similar, as weather conditions for this farmer are the same, and soil conditions will be similar too. In the table below is shown that this large farmer also mainly grows rice and has yield decrease. The only difference compared to the other five farmers from the main village Chitarkadu, is that the farmer from Kokkaranthangal does not use groundwater (see table 5).
Table 5 Chitarkadu main village and Kokkaranthangal
Village Farm size Groundwater use Yield decrease Main crop Decreasing rains
Chitarkadu Large Yes No Rice Some years
Chitarkadu Small Yes Yes Rice Some years
Chitarkadu Large Yes Yes Rice Some years
Chitarkadu Large Yes Yes Rice Some years
Chitarkadu Large Yes Yes Rice Some years
Kokkaranthangal Large No Yes Rice Some years
During the research period it became clear that Chitarkadu is a revenue village also containing Taneer Poudel and Palayur. 11The revenue village of Chitarkadu consists also of the smaller hamlets Taneer Poudel and Palayur, the revenue village has a definite surveyed boundary, presented as one administrative unit of the Cheyyur Taluk (censusindia.gov.in). Spatially the hamlets are close to each other, again creating similar weather and soil conditions.
The unit of analysis are the farmers belonging to these three villages. Involved in the sampling method was snowball sampling (Bryman, 2012), as we asked farmers if they knew any other farmers in the village that would be open and have the time to participate in the research.
All household surveys done in this fieldwork are agricultural households as at least one member, the household head or main income earner is economically active in agriculture.
4.4 Productivity Indicators
The main focus within this research is on agricultural productivity of farmers in the area of Cheyyur. To measure agricultural productivity Diskin (1999) created an indicator management guide, examining productivity activities. The most evident indicator is crop yield per area, as it is easy to measure the amount of crop that is harvested per area of sowed cropland. Several data collection methods to
emphasize the yields are prevalent, most used are crop cutting and farmer estimation. While the first one focuses on subplots and weighting to estimate yields, the latter focuses on the entire cropland and surveying farmers, as done in this research.
5.1 Household survey analyses
The focus within this analysis is on the distribution of the values on the variables gender, age, education and occupation through the households in the research area. Household surveys have been conducted at thirty households throughout three main villages in an area of ten square kilometres. Main results are shown below in the table 6.
Table 6 Household survey per village (main results)12
Town Gender Age Occupation Education
Male Female 0-10 21-30 Farmer Housewife None Higher
Vedal 21 20 4 7 8 12 19 3 % within town 51.2 48.8 12.9 22.6 19.5 29.3 46.3 7.3 Chitarkad u 38 33 3 20 20 28 8 16 % within town 53.5 46.5 4.5 29.9 28.2 39.4 11.3 22.5 Vilangadu 11 14 0 2 7 12 5 6 % within town 44.0 56.0 0.0 8.0 28.0 48.0 20 24.0 Total 70 67 7 29 35 52 32 25 % within town 51.1 48.9 5.7 23.6 25.5 38.0 23.4 18.2
Concerning gender the sex ratio is close to 1:1, precisely 70 males for 67 females, a percentage of 51.1 % male and 48.9 female.
Vilangadu has a lower percentage of males, while Vedal and Chitarkadu have a higher percentage of females.
Only a small percentage is between the age of 0 and ten (5.7 %), most people are between 21 and 30.13 Vedal has the highest percentage young people (0-10), Vilangadu has none.14
The most common occupation is housewife, since most wives of farmers stay at home and sometimes help at the farm; also older daughters participate in the household as housewives. The second most prevalent occupation is farmer, which 12 See annex 2
13 For age, six categories were created from 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50 and 51 and above.
14 Fourteen out of the 137 persons have an unknown age, in other cases it might be obvious that the age has been a very broad estimate, as mothers are sometimes only in their early twenties
is explained by the fact that the focus of this research was in a farming dense area and that respondents are chosen by the condition that they are farmers. In total eleven different occupations are present in the research area.
Most people have had secondary education (42.3%); in this percentage also
people that did not finish secondary school (12th grade) are included. A percentage of 23 per cent did not get any education at all. Only 18.2 per cent received higher education, the highest percentage of higher education people is found in Vilangadu (24.4 %). 15
5.2 Variables on farm level
Looking at variables on the farmers’ level; at first it is possible to present the distribution of the farmers through the six villages. Most farmers are from the revenue village Chitarkadu.
Farmsize
A very important variable during this research is the size of the farmland a farmer owns. Farmland from one acre up to 7 acres is labelled as small, 7 as medium and above 7 as large. There are only two medium sized farms (6.7 %), 19 out of 30 farmers are small farmers (63,3%), 9 out of 30 are large (30%). Farmland ranges from 1 acre to 12 acres. 16 As shown below in table 6 the two medium sized farms are found in Vedal and in Chitarkadu. Most farms in the three villages are small sized. Vilangadu has the highest percentage of large farms compared to the two other villages.
Table 7 Farm size per town
Town Small Size Large Total Medium Vedal 6 1 2 9 % within Town 66.7 11.1 22.2 100.0
15 Finally education is categorised in five different values, one can be too young, have no education, only primary education, secondary education or be higher educated.
Chitarkadu 9 1 4 14 % within Town 64.3 7.1 28.6 100.0 Vilangadu 4 0 3 7 % within Town 57.1 0.0 42.9 100.0 Total 19 2 9 30 % within Town 63.3 6.7 30.0 100.0 Main crop
In Vilangadu all farmers grow rice as a main crop. In Vedal 77.8 % of farmers grow groundnut as a main crop, in Chitarkadu this is 57.1 % (see table below).
Table 8 Maincrop per village
Maincrop Total Groundnut Rice Vedal 7 2 9 % within town 77.8 22.2 100.0 Chitarkadu 8 6 14 % within town 57.1 42.9 100.0 Vilangadu 0 7 7 % within town 0.0 100.0 100.0 Total 15 15 30 % within town 50.0 50.0 100.0
Taking medium size farmers into account it is studied if there is a relationship between the main crop a farmer owns and the possession of livestock. This results in no relationship at all.
Yield
Yield is specified by farmers in means of income (INR) or in amount of bags. Yield decrease is calculated from income decrease or amount of bag decrease as indicated by farmers. Income or amount of bags for last year (2012-2013) is seen as 100 %. Whereby last year (2012-2013) is seen as 100 per cent, to calculate the percentage loss this year(2013-2014) . Some farmers were able to indicate yield losses already in percentages as 50 or 25 per cent. Nineteen farmers were able to indicate their loss in yield in percentages or the amount of bags their yield
indicate their loss in percentages, for eleven farmers it is only possible to state that their yield has decreased. Seven farmers (23.3 %) experience a yield decrease of 50 per cent.
Farmers not specifying their yield loss, but indicating that they experienced yield loss are estimated to have the average yield decrease of the size category they fit in (small, medium, large). Before these missing values are added, the average yield decrease per size category was calculated.
First the focus is on whether or not yields are decreasing. Only two farmers have no decreasing yields (6.7 %), while 28 farmers are facing decreasing yields (93.3 %). The two medium farmers of Vedal and Chitarkadu are both the only two farmers with no decreasing yields (see table below).
Table 9 Yield decrease yes or no per town
Decreasing yields Total
no yes Vedal 1 8 9 % within town 11.1% 88.9% 100.0% Chitarkadu 1 13 14 % within town 7.1% 92.9% 100.0% Vilangadu 0 7 7 % within town 0.0% 100.0% 100.0% Total 2 28 30 % within town 6.7% 93.3% 100.0%
Furthermore it is possible to indicate whether or not a farmer uses groundwater. Seventeen farmers (56.7%) do not use groundwater, thirteen farmers (56.7%) do use the groundwater to irrigate their croplands.
Also the majority of farmers have livestock, ranging from just one cow for some milk to farmers that own forty goats, ten cows and some chicken. Eight farmers do not have any livestock.
Finally most farmers (24 out of thirty) were able to indicate their monthly income. Although some state their income per year or per yield this was all simplified and
calculated to a monthly income in Indian Rupees (INR). The values of the income are not very reliable in the sense that many farmers do not really keep track and are very dependent on their harvest for their final income. Many farmers live on the surplus and profits of the harvest till the next harvest. Only looking at the farmers with a certain amount of income per month (24), fifty per cent of the farmers have less than 5000 INR 17 per month to spend. Only four farmers have more than 17.000 INR18 per month to spend (16.7%).
Yield decrease small and large farms
Out of thirty farmers only two farmers aren’t experiencing decreasing yields over the last years. Seven farmers claim that there was no (sufficient) rain for a year now and all farmers agree that rain has been decreasing. Rain pattern by farmers are described as that there is not much rain, only short intense moments of rain. Also the monsoon is changing, causing rains to be unpredictable and later in the season. Also spatially rain perception throughout the research area differs a lot. This is in line with conventional literature (IPCC, 2013, e.g.) on climate change and changing monsoon rains. Concerning future perspective of farming all farmers expect farming to disappear within five years, if there are no sufficient rains. However respondent 21 adds that the rains won’t stop after all: “ But it won’t
happen. It is rare. There was a 10 year drought also during the 1950’s “. Therefore claiming that this is just another dryer period for the farmers to experience and survive. The two farmers that do not experience yield loss, are both medium
landowning farmers. One farmer is from Vedal owns about seven acres of land and five animals of livestock. He produces mainly rice and groundnuts but also Yellu a kind of dry rice, suitable to drier conditions and Malaga (a green chilly). He states that there is enough water available for his land, as he uses groundwater to irrigate his lands; therefore the quality of the soil is very good. The groundwater might dry up if sufficient rains stay off for more years. The medium land owning farmer from Chitarkadu owns also 7 acres of land, he also grows groundnuts and rice, but rice dominates. He irrigates its land in the same way, with pumps from the
groundwater. Both are claiming to have enough water available to irrigate the land for the next years, but if rains stay off, he might also get in trouble.
Farmers that own more acres of land, the big landowners, seem to be affected by the decreasing rains, while this two farmers owning about seven acres can sustain their selves.
Seven farmers face halved yields, these are geographically concentrated around the revenue village of Chitarkadu. Concerning the large farms all four are using the groundwater to irrigate their lands. The three small farmers do not use the
groundwater to irrigate their lands.
This adds up to the debate of large farms versus small farms concerning food security.
Since only two farmers did not experience a decrease in yield, and they both owned about 7 acres of land, they were identified in this research as medium size farmers. All the farmers with less than 7 acres are categorized as small and all farmers owning more than 7 acres as large. This makes it possible to take out the medium farmers during further analysis of the data with SPSS. If these two farmers and their values are used in crosstabs e.g. they have a strong influence on the significance of relationships between variables. With medium size farmers in the analysis it creates apparent values for significance and the Cramers V. 19
5.3 Hypothesis control
One of my hypotheses was that large farmers would grow rice more frequently compared to small farmers. In SPSS a variable created called ‘Maincrop’, indicated the main crop a farmer grows. Since the medium size farms are left out, 28 farmers are exanimated here. Comparing large and small farmers 73.7 % of small farmers grows groundnut as main crop opposite to 0.0 % of large farmers. Rice is grown as a main crop by all large farmers (100%) and only 26.3 % of small farmers grow rice as main crop. This is a significant and strong relationship 20, confirming the
hypothesis that large farmers are more likely to grow rice than small farmers. A second hypothesis was that small farmers would more frequently own livestock than large farmers. 73,7% of the small size farmers owns livestock, 66.7 % of the large farmers own livestock. This is not a significant correlation (0.701), and 19 To define a statistical relationship is, Cramer’s V is used here since it concerns nominal
variables. Value of 0 = no correlation, above 0 – 0.45 = weak correlation, 0.45 – 0.65 = fairly strong correlation, 0.65 – below 1 = strong correlation and 1 = perfect correlation (Derickx et al., 1994). 20 Approx. Sig. is 0.000 and Cramer’s V has a value of 0.688.
therefore not generalizable outside of the sample. What could be stated though about the sample is that 14 out of 19 small farmers own livestock, opposite of 6 out of 9 large farmers, so small farmers are 7 per cent more likely to have livestock as do large farmers. This second hypothesis will be rejected due to lack of
significance.
Not all farmers use groundwater, only 26.3 % of the small farmers use
groundwater, while 66.7 % of large farmers use groundwater. This is possibly due to the larger amount of resources (capitally) large farmers have available, and therefore it is sufficient to invest in techniques that can pump up the water and constructions to irrigate lands with this groundwater.
The most important hypothesis is the one concerning yield decrease, stating that small farmers will have higher yields decreases, compared to large farmers. As earlier identified only 2 farmers out of 30 farmers do not experience yield decrease, and therefore indicated at medium scale farmers. They were able to sustain the yield of the land they have (around 7 acres), they both use the groundwater and earn about 80.000 RUP a year, and both grow rice and
groundnuts. Although on the medium size farm in Chitarkadu rice dominates, as he uses pumps and pipes to pump up the groundwater. The other medium size farm without yield loss is found in Vedal. This farmer grows groundnut and rice evenly, With SPSS it is possible to calculate the means per group of small, large and medium. Calculated without the missing values for yield decrease the following yield decreases are seen. Small farmers have a mean of 31.73 % yield loss, medium 0 %, large 39,67.
To include the farmers that were unable to indicate their yield losses, they are valued with the mean of their size group. However no significant relationship or strong correlation can be observed. Although prevalent is that large farmers have more frequenter yield losses of 50% or higher as do small farmers. If yield loss is categorized in 25 % or lower and 50% or lower, 73.7 % of the small farmers fall in this group, whilst 88.9% of the large farmers fall within this group. In other words eight of nine large farmers experience yield decreases higher than 25 %. One could state from this data that it is not possible to identify if large or small farmers have frequenter yield decrease. What could be concluded is that in the research area large farmers have higher amounts of yield decrease, as do small farmers. This is also supported by the means of yield decrease of the small and large sized
farms.
5.4 Grow cycles of main crops
The main crops grown in the research area, as mentioned before, are groundnut and rice. The first respondent during this fieldwork indicated the procedure for growing these two crops, this accounts for most farmers as the general procedure. Seeds are provided by different comities, government based or private companies participate in the supply. Governmental seed banks provide for lower fares, but supply fewer varieties. It is also possible for the farmer to save the seeds from last year’s crop.
Concerning groundnuts, seeds are planted randomly on a ploughed field, and water is added. After seven to eight days the seeds sprout, the sprouts are taken out and planted in an organised order. After fifteen days pesticides and water are added to the young plants, this is repeated after about 32 days. In total it takes at least 90 days after the planting of the seeds to grow to a mature, harvest ready plant that completed the growing cycle. In total pesticides are applied twice and water three times during the growing cycle. As fieldwork was mainly conducted around the harvest period of groundnut, this is observed as following. First the groundnut plants are taken out by hand, and pilled. It is important for the
groundnuts to dry for a couple of days, about three to four, before they are taken of the plants. After the drying the plant and its leaves are separated from their ‘fruits’ the groundnuts, this all takes place at the field. Groundnuts with shells are
distributed from the land to the farmer’s house. During the whole process female and male labourers work together, about two labourers per acre. According to respondent one, who owns about 3 acres of land, four labourers are needed to seed groundnut, which takes one day. During the growing cycle of the crop, four labourers are responsible for the weeding. To harvest the crop again four labourers are deployed. Special bags are used to sell the groundnuts. One bag weighs about 42 kilograms, which is worth about 1500 rupees for groundnuts with shell and 5000 for just the peanuts, as confirmed by many respondents.
Regarding rice, the focus is on wet rice, whereby the field is constantly covered with water. The ground is first ploughed and then wetted, creating a muddy soil,
followed by the spraying of rice seeds on the cropland. The mud ‘catches’ the seeds and absorbs these into the soil. After forty days the sprouts come out, which after the sprouts can be arranged properly. Up to four months the roots of the young rice plants should always be covered in water. After about 6 months the growing cycle is completed and the mature rice plants are ready for harvest. During the cultivation of rice female and male workers account for different parts of the process. While women arrange the sprouts, 25 per acre, the men do the ploughing. Harvest of rice has been bad last years, caused by a delay in the growing cycle of forty days. One bag of rice, about 77 kilograms, is worth between 1000 and 1600 rupees, depending on the variety of rice. Most frequent varieties are punni, kundu and ptt.
Fertilizer is added during the whole growing cycle for both groundnut and rice. Since rain has been decreasing, the lands have been less fertile; as a result the use of fertilizers has increased.
After crops are harvested, the fields are not cleared, but lie fallow till the next seeding period, when the land will be ploughed.
6. Conclusions
Farmers in the research area are very much dependent on monsoon, short and intense rains, mainly in November and December. Lately (last 5 years) monsoon has been shifting to later months and has become very unpredictable, therefore experiencing environmental stresses. According to most farmers the last sufficient monsoon was in 2011, 2 years ago. Usually farmers have enough rain for their crops to grow till April or May. Most farmers are able to live on surpluses from
seasons before for about one or two years, if yields are unsuccessful.
Furthermore, although rains have decreased, farmers tend to have enough water to maintain themselves, and secondly their livestock, but not enough for farming. Farmers talk about declining livestock, due to less water availability and therefore less feed for their cattle, as barren lands intend not to have any weeds or grasses on it. Most croplands in the research area are very fertile if there is enough water available. But if the croplands are very dry, in case of sudden rains, water sinks in very fast.
So droughts on the first level cause problems for their cropland and its short and long time fertility, on the second level it causes problems for the production, yield and quality of standing crop. This results in problems for the food security and the incomes of agricultural families. All farmers state that if the rains continue to decrease in the next five years, farming won’t be possible anymore, but farmers don’t know what else to do.
The most important crops in the area are rice and groundnuts. Rice is regularly produced as market (cash) crop and brought to mills or as feed for the cows. Groundnut is also mainly grown as a market crop.
To answer the first subquestion farmers were categorized in small medium and large. Small farmers own less than 7 acres, medium farmers 7 acres and large farmers more than 7 acres. Almost all farmers have the same procedures for planting, growing and harvesting crops. The agricultural productivity (output) is mostly influenced by weather patterns and monsoon. If productivity is less (output less) there are fewer farm products, causing a household to have less money available. Inputs used by most farmers are water (by rain/irrigation),
pesticides/herbicides, fertilizers, seeds, labour, machinery, and additional infrastructure on the croplands. Outputs are crops that can be eaten, but mostly sold to the local market and plant leftovers used as feed for cattle.
All farmers except the two medium sized farms experienced yield decrease. At least for one year, and some for two years now, farmers experienced yield losses up to 50%. Although conventionally believed, in the Cheyyur area, large
landowners tend to have a slighter larger decrease in yield as do small farmers. Small farmers will be able to sustain them selves better if rains stay off, since they are less dependent on groundwater and tend to have livestock more frequently. On the other hand they can be more productive since they use their inputs more
