FARM SIZE AND LAND PRODUCTIVITY IN INDIAN AGRICULTURE - REAPPRAISAL

This paper seeks to assess the significance of the celebrated inverse relationship between farm size and land-productivity in the context of Indian agriculture. It is argued that the inverse relationship does not reflect a superiority of peasant production over wage-labour-based production as is often supposed. It exists independently of production relations and thus reflects only a static superiority of small-scale over large-scale production. An essential precondition for this superiority, however, is a backwardness of technology. With technological progress involving the introduction of chemical fertilizers, labour-saving machinery and modern irrigation equipment, the inverse relationship is, therefore, likely to disappear. © 1979, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.