3. Introduction – on Palampur
• Palampur is a Hypothetical village - based on a research study by
Gilbert Etienne of a village in Bulandshashr district in Uttar Pradesh
OverView of Palampur:
• Activities: Farming, small scale manufacturing, transport, dairy etc.
• Nearest village and town: Raiganj, a big village 3 km away from
Palampur and the nearest small town is Shahpur.
• Mode of transport: bullock carts, tongas, bogeys (wooden cart drawn
by buffalos) loaded with jaggery (gur), motorcycles, jeeps, tractors and
trucks.
4. Population and facilities in Palampur
• 450 families belonging to several different castes.
• 80 upper caste families own the majority of land in the village.
• The SCs (dalits) comprise one third of the population
• Electric connections: Used in most of the houses, tube wells, various
types of small business.
• Schools and Hospitals:Two primary schools and one high school, a
primary health centre and one private dispensary
• Nonfarm activities: small manufacturing, transport, shop-keeping, etc.
5. Organisation of Production
• The aim of production is to produce the goods and services that we
want.
• There are four requirements for production
• 1. Land: It includes land and other natural resources such as water,
forests, minerals.
• 2. Labour: people who will do the work.There are two types of labourers
such as Skilled workers (highly educated workers) and unskilled
workers ( do manual work)
8. Organisation of Production
• 3. Physical Capital:The variety of inputs required at every stage
during production.
a. fixed capital: Tools, machines, buildings - simple tools such as
a farmer’s plough to sophisticated machines such as generators,
turbines, computers, etc.
b. working capital: Raw materials and money in hand
• 4. knowledge and enterprise (human capital): to put together
land, labour and physical capital and produce an output
either to use yourself or to sell in the market.
10. Factors of Production
• Factors of Production: Every production is organised by
combining land, labour, physical capital and
human capital, which are known as factors of
production.
12. Farming in Palampur
Land is Fixed: 75 per cent of the people are dependent on farming for
their livelihood.
Basic constraint in raising production – land area is fixed
Since 1960 in Palampur, there has been no expansion in land area under
cultivation.
By then, some of the wastelands in the village had been converted to
cultivable land.
There exists no further scope to increase farm production by bringing
new land under cultivation.
13. Standard Unit of Land
• The standard unit of measuring land is hectare
• Local units: bigha, guintha etc.
• One hectare = 10,000square metres (the area of a square with one side
measuring 100 metres.
14. Grow More from the Same Land
• There are two ways to increase production from the same land.
• 1. Multiple Cropping
• 2. Modern Farming
• Multiple Cropping: No land is left idle in Palampur.
• They cultivate Kharif, rabi and intermediary crops.
16. Multiple Cropping
• To grow more than one crop on a piece of land during the year is called
multiple cropping.
• Rainy season (kharif) - jowar and bajra - cattle feed.
• Between October and December – potato
• Winter season (rabi) - wheat
• A part of the land is used for sugarcane – which is harvested once every
year.
18. Irrigation System
• Farmers are able to grow three different crops in a year
• Electricity transform the system of irrigation.
• Persian wheels were, till then, used and now electric-run tube wells
could irrigate much larger area.
• By mid-1970s the entire cultivated area of 200 hectares (ha.) was
irrigated
20. Modern Farming
• Yield: Crop produced on a given piece of land during a single season.
• Green Revolution (Modern farming) introduced in late 1960s.
• Cultivation of wheat and rice using high yielding varieties of seeds (HYVs),
chemical fertilizers, pesticides, artificial irrigation, modern appliances etc.
• Traditional seeds needed less irrigation and cow-dung and other natural
manure as fertilizers.
• HYV seeds needed plenty of water, chemical fertilizers and pesticides to
get better result.
• Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh were the first to try out modern
farming.
22. Outcomes of Modern Farming
• In Palampur, the yield of wheat grown from the traditional varieties was 1300
kg per hectare.
• With HYV seeds, the yield went up to 3200 kg per hectare.
• There was a large increase in the production of wheat.
• Farmers now had greater amounts of surplus wheat to sell in the markets.
23. Will the land sustain?
(Demerits of Modern Farming)
• Scientific reports indicate that the modern farming methods have
overused the natural resource base.
• Green Revolution is associated with the loss of soil fertility due to
increased use of chemical fertilisers.
• Continuous use of groundwater for tube well irrigation has led to the
depletion of the water-table.
• Environmental resources, like soil fertility and groundwater, are built up
over years. Once destroyed it is very difficult to restore them.
24. Use of Chemical Fertilizers
• Chemical fertilizers may not be retained in the soil for long.
• They may escape from the soil and pollute groundwater, rivers and lakes.
• Chemical fertilizers can also kill bacteria and other microorganisms in the soil.
• This means some time after their use, the soil will be less fertile than ever
before.
• The consumption of chemical fertilizers in Punjab is highest in the country.
• The continuous use of chemical fertilizers has led to degradation of soil health.
25. Distribution of Land in Palampur
• 150 families (one third) – landless farmers
• 240 families - less than 2 hectares
• 60 families - more than 2 hectares of land
• 450 families - total
• Landless farmers : no land of their own
• Small farmers : less than 2 hectares
• Medium farmers : 2-10 hectares
• Large farmers : more than 10 hectares
27. Distribution of Land in India
• Marginal and small farmers : cultivated area -44.6%
number of farmers -85%
• Medium and large farmers : cultivated area –55.4%
number of farmers – 15%
28. Who will provide the labour?
• Small farmers along with their families cultivate their land
• Medium and large farmers hire farm labourers
• Farm labourers - landless families or small farmers
• Farm labourers do not have a right over the land
• Wages can be in cash or in kind.
• Minimum wages for a farm labourer set by the government
is Rs 300 per day but Dala gets only Rs 160.
29. The capital needed in farming
• Most small farmers have to borrow money to arrange for the capital.
• They borrow from large farmers or the village moneylenders or the
traders who supply various inputs for cultivation.
• The rate of interest on such loans is very high.They are put to great
distress to repay the loan.
• The medium and large farmers have their own savings from farming.They are
thus able to arrange for the capital needed.
30. Sale of Surplus Farm Products
• Farmers retain a part of the wheat for the family’s consumption and sell the
surplus wheat.
• Small farmers like Savita and Gobind’s sons have little surplus wheat because
their total production is small and from this a substantial share is kept for their
own family needs.
• The traders at the market buy the wheat and sell it further to shopkeepers in
the towns and cities
31. Non-FarmActivities in Palampur
1. Dairy — the other common activity
People feed their buffalos on various kinds of grass and the jowar and bajra
• The milk is sold in Raiganj,
• Two traders from Shahpur town have set up collection cum chilling centres
2. Small-scale manufacturing in Palampur
• Involves very simple production methods and are done on a small scale.
• They are carried out mostly at home or in the fields with the help of family
labour. Rarely are labourers hired.
34. Non- farm Activities
• 3. The shopkeepers of Palampur
• shopkeepers who buy various goods from wholesale markets and sell
them.
• rice, wheat, sugar, tea, oil, biscuits, soap, toothpaste, batteries, candles,
notebooks, pen, pencil, even some cloth.
• 4. Transport: a fast developing sector
• Rickshawallahs, tongawallahs, jeep, tractor, truck drivers and people
driving the traditional bullock cart and bogey.
