meet his family's needs from the wages that he received. A few years back,
Kishore took a loan from the bank. This was under a government programme
which was giving cheap loans to poor landless households. kishore bought a buffalo with this money.

He now sells the buffalo's milk. Further, he has attached a wooden cart to
his buffalo and uses it to transport various items. Once a week, he goes
to the Ganges to bring back clay for the potter. Or sometimes he goes to
Jahangirabad with a load of jaggery or other commodities. Every month, he
gets some work in the transport services. As a result, Kishore is able to
earn more than what he used to some years back.

Summing up

Farming is the main production activity in the village. Over the years
there have been many important changes in the way farming is practiced. These
have allowed the farmers to produce more crops from the same amount of
land. This is an important achievement, since land is fixed and scarce. But
in raising production a great deal of pressure has been put on land and
other natural resources. There is urgent need to review the methods of
production and ensure sustainable use of the resources.

Farming now needs much more of capital. The medium and large farmers are
able to use their own savings from production to arrange for capital during
the next season.On the other hand, the small farmers who constitute about
87 percent of total farmers in India find it difficult to obtain capital.

Because of the small size of their plots, their production is not enough.
The lack of surplus means that they are unable to obtain capital from
their own saving, and have to borrow. Besides the debt, many of the small
farmers have to do additional work as farm labourers because of the low
income.

Labour being the most abundant factor of production, it would be ideal if
the new ways of farming used much more labour. Unfortunately, such a
thing has not happened. The use of labour on farms is limited. The labour,
looking for opportunities is thus migration to neighbouring villages, towns
and cities. Some labour has entered the non-farm sector in the village.

At present, the non-farm sector in the village is not very large. Though
there is a variety of non-farm activities in the villages (we have only
seen a few examples),the number of people employed in each is quite small. In
2009-2010, out of every 100 workers in the rural areas in India, 32 are
engaged in non-farm activities. This includes the workers who are employed
as part of MGNREGA on