Farm families livelihood Problems: A research study in rural areas of Haryana state, India

Abstract

Livelihoods have a ma­jor bearing on many basic issues that affect the poor in India. Low income individuals living in developing countries regularly engage in a variety of formal and informal labour activities to support them­selves and their families. The economic reforms in India did not include any specific package specifically designed for agriculture which showed low growth, poverty, unemployment, inequalities in access to health and education and poor performance of agriculture sector and experienced more farmers’ suicides. It should be considered that Indian agriculture is the home of small and marginal farmers. Therefore, the future of sustainable agriculture growth and food security in India depends on the performance of small and marginal farmers. So the present study was an effort to analyse the livelihood problems of rural small and marginal farm families. The study was conducted in Gurgaon division of Haryana state and two districts from Gurgaon division i.e. Rewari and Mahendragarh were selected randomly. From selected two blocks Jatusana and Kanina, four villages (two from each block) Dahina and Maseet from Jatusana and Kakrala and Rambas from Kanina were selected randomly. From the selected villages a sample of 75 small and marginal farm families from was drawn randomly to make the total sample size of 300 farm families. In the study problems faced by farm families related to livelihood security was assessed and in Mahendergarh district sample households mainly faced the problem related to market (Rank I, WMS 2.16) followed by problems related to climate (Rank II, WMS 2.14), problems related to government (Rank III, WMS1.99), problems related to agriculture (Rank IV, WMS 1.85) and problems related to climate (Rank V, WMS 1.81) respectively.