Income inequalities of farmer producer organizations registered as Mutually Aided Co-Operative Society (MACS) in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

According to the millennium development goals, addressing poverty is the biggest challenge of this millennium. The livelihoods of approximately 70% of India's rural people depend on agriculture and related activities. However, small holding-based agriculture has steadily lost its viability due to highly scattered, diverse, and fragmented landholding, growing cultivation costs, and limited access of small/marginal farmers (SF/MF) to public resources and markets. Small and marginal farmers make up the major members of FPOs, which are collectives of farmers. The Andhra Pradesh Mutually Aided Co-operative Societies Act, 1995 (APMACS) was started in Andhra Pradesh (A.P) state has updated certain restrictive clauses in the former co-operative legislation. Study was carried out in Rapthadu Mandal of Anantapur district. 10 random villages were selected for the study from a list of 30 villages in Rapthadu Mandal that were covered by the MACS. Data was collected from 60 MACS farmers and a control sample of 40 non-MACS farmers from the randomly chosen villages. Gini coefficient ratio and Lorenz curve were employed to assess the income inequalities in the selected sample. Nearly 72% of the farm families was between the income limit of Rs. 45,000 and their share in total income was 24.7 per cent while 70% of the non-MACS farm families was between the income limit of Rs. 45,000 and their share in the total income was 23.32%. Gini index for the households of MACS and non-MACS were 0.451 and 0.465 respectively.