This document discusses dryland farming in India and issues with planning processes in dryland areas. Some key points: - Dryland farming is defined as areas receiving less than 500mm of annual rainfall and where potential evaporation exceeds precipitation. Major dryland crops in India include millets, oilseeds, pulses. - Planning processes have not worked as well in dryland areas compared to irrigated areas. New opportunities are not generated effectively and planning adds to difficulties faced by dryland communities. - A study in Karnataka found higher acceptance of improved practices by farmers in drought-prone areas, but limited potential was not fully realized. However, income increases benefit upper strata more than lower strata

1. Research work Referred: Indian
Agricultural Economy Under Liberalised
Regime 1991-2015, Indian Society of
Agricultural Economics
Change Processes in Dryland Communities
V M Rao
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2. Definition
• Dryland farming is frequently defined as crop production in areas
with less than 500 mm of annual precipitation, but this definition
omits a critical component of the equation, evaporation potential.
Operatively, dryland farming is practiced where annual potential
water evaporation exceeds annual precipitation.
• Grapes, tomatoes, pumpkins, beans, and other summer crops are
examples of dry-farmed crops. Wheat, corn, millet, rye, and other
grain-producing grasses are examples of dryland grain crops. Instead
of relying on rainfall throughout the growing season, these crops
thrive using the winter water stored in the soil.
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3. Major Dryland Farming Crops in India
•
Major dry crops include millets such as Bajra, Jwar, ragi, mustard,
oilseeds like rapeseed, pulse, crops like gram, lentil, pigeon pea, etc.
Moreover, almost 80% of Jwar and Bajra, 90% of Bajra, 75% of
oilseeds, and 95% of pulses are obtained from dryland agriculture in
India.
• Ragi is a crop that is suitable for dryland farming since it requires
rainfall in the range of 700-1200 mm on an annual basis. Rice, jute
and sugarcane all require more rainfall. To Summarise; Dryland
farming is referred to as the practice of farming in semi-arid areas
with drought-resistant crops and moisture conservation.
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4. State Arid Area (square km) Semi-arid Area (square
km)
Rajasthan 196,150 (57.31) 121,020 (35.396)
Gujarat 62,180 (31.72) 90,520 (46.18)
Maharashtra 1,290 (0.42) 189,580 (61.61)
Madhya Pradesh - 59,470 (13.41)
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Which states in India are dry land?

5. Introduction
• The Planning process in India has now reached a point where it has to
achieve a fresh breakthrough in its approach and strategies. It has so
far passed through three major phases: the phase of community
development and structural reform during the 1980s, the phase of
Green revolution focused on growth since the mid 1960s; and the
poverty eradication phase beginning with about the mid 1970s. These
phases have had some noteable achievements but the overall thrust
of the process is still too weak to promote development of backward
areas with chronic poverty and stagnant rural economy.
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6. What is the Problem specific to Dryland Area Development?
• Themes under development of backward areas needs to be studied
under systematic heads and VM Rao focusses on dryland
communities which have lagged in agricultural growth and
development. He finds ample evidence in Karnataka with which he is
familiar and elsewhere, of growing contrast between the dryland and
irrigated areas. This is understandable given the contrast between
the two in resource base and other relevant physical conditions. Yet
more specifically he feels the difference is that the planning process
does not work as well in dryland areas as it does in the irrigated
areas.
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7. What is the Problem specific to Dryland Area
Development?
• The Generation and utilisation of new opportunities which is what a
planning process is expected to stimulate, tends to be weak, uncertain and
unstable in the dryland areas.
• Instead of helping these areas to overcome the constraints on
development; the planning process seems only to add to their difficulties
by its poor performance. In fact, a finding of a recent study on dryland
agriculture in Karnataka is that the state achieved a major breakthrough in
the 1960s and 1970s but was not able to sustain it later. As a consequence
even the limited potential created by new researches has yet to be realised
fully. Considering the crucial role assigned to dryland agriculture in the
Planning strategy, it would indeed be a relevant exercise to take a look at
the status of the planning process in dryland areas and communities.
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8. Planning Process in todays Virtual world
•The beneficiary groups are composed of farmers who in
dryland areas pursue a precarious occupation with
incomes barely sufficient for subsistence. Given the
sharp differences between planners and the beneficiary
groups in relation to economic status, place in social
hierarchy and other related characteristics, it is only to
be expected that the interactions among them would
lose focus and become ineffective unless the planning
system and extension arrangement is looked at with
reference to the broader processes of change operating
in dryland communities
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9. Adoption of change by households
• It is convenient to begin our account with beneficiary groups. Do they
adopt technologies and practices made available to them, and if they
do, how productive are they, that is how effectively do they adopt
them?
• The acceptance levels on the basis of a survey among Karnataka
farmers showed, that in a drought prone area with modest holdings
belonging to weaker sections, a program focussed on land
improvements and improved utilisation of inputs and practices had a
high rate of acceptance. This shows that technology and improving
practices by State Extension Department and State Agricultural
Knowledge, Innovation and Research Workers do have a local connect
at least
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10. common property resources
• Which land is common property resources?
• CPRs include all resources like village pastures and grazing grounds,
village forests and woodlots, protected and unclassed government
forests, waste land, common threshing grounds, watershed drainage,
ponds and tanks, rivers, rivulets, water reservoirs, canals and
irrigation channels.
• The CPRs have traditionally been a source of economic sustenance of
the rural poor and have played an important resource-supplementing
role in the private-property based farming system. They are also the
main source of biomass fuel for the rural population
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11. Some glimpses of the process in action..
• Lets present field findings giving glimpses of the working of the two groups of
processes in dryland communities. We can see how far the lower strata
benefits from economic growth as compared to the upper strata. The ‘lower
strata” as defined, includes the landless and the marginal farmers usually the
poorest in dryland communities.
• We will see further, the relative performance of the lower and upper strata in
relation to four growth cum development indicators: the ownership of land,
the type of economic activity pursued as main occupation, the acquisition of
assets like livestock and use of developmental facility provided by the
government Common Property Resources lands covered by fodder
development schemes. It enables comparision of the performance as
between the backward village and a developed village.
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12. Comparitive Characteristics of lower and upper strata in two village types
Serial no Chatacteristics Lower strata
backward village
Upper Strata
backward village
Developed Village
lower strata
Developed Village
upper strata
1 Net income per household Rs. 7.906 Rs 8,698 Rs.7,765 Rs 26.586
2 Area owned per land
owning household (acres)
6.97 1.19 9.85
3 Number of workers having
main occupation
Agriculture 2 29 1 47
Agricultural labour 15 47 24 18
Others 17 70 9 50
Total workers 34 146 34 115
4 Number of livestock per
household
.85 3.22 .17 6.74
5 Number of households
using developed CPR
lands(fodder development)
12 17 37
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13. Broad characterisation of process of change
as above
• Disappearance of their traditional occupations e.g. decline in
household manufacturing mentioned above, loss of productive
resources and people to the larger economy through migration and
marketization and disinvestment in human capital and skills caused by
lack of opportunities and struggle for survival at subsistence level are
some of the common types of costs imposed on them. Unless the
costs are taken into account along with the lack of benefits, a full
picture of the development lags and handicaps of these communities
will not emerge.
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14. Observations from the table
• It can be seen from the table that the upper strata households in the
‘developed village” have net income which was over three times the net
income in the corresponding strata in the “backward village”.
• Thus it is indeed meaningful to regard the former as having the characteristics
of a village which has witnessed substantial increase in incomes as compared
to the latter village.
• A point which stands out clearly in the above table is that the process of
growth in the income brings about a widening gap between the incomes of
the two strata. It is as if the process is initiated, operated and controlled by
the upper strata who derive its major benefits. We actually see below a small
decrease in the income of the lower strata as between the ‘backward” and the
“developed village”. While such an outcome is not entirely impossible, one can
regard the more common situation as the one in which some “trickle down”
does reach the lower strata but not enough to alter their economic status
within the community.
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15. Further observations
• The four other indicators in the above table throw some further interesting light on the
process of income increase occurring in the dryland communities. Firstly, the access to the
preferred assets like land and livestock is seen to remain confined to the upper strata. They
already have an asset base in the “backward” village but, more important the strata are
observed to make notable additions to them in the “developed” village. In contrast, the
lower strata who possess meagre assets in the backward village remain so in the latter
village too. In other words, the process of income increase favours those already having an
asset base as against those not having it.
• Secondly, even a development facility created specifically for the poor such as common
property resource lands covered by the fodder development scheme is used more
extensively by the upper strata possessing the necessary asset viz. livestock.
• Thirdly, looking at the data on occupational distribution of workers, it is obvious that the
process of income increase pushes the lower strata more and more into the labour market.
It is this feature which weakens the trickle down effects as those depending on labour
market in dryland communities would have meagre chance of moving into the more
productive and renumerative parts of the economy
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