How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data

A fundamental prerequisite for designing public for farmers is that we know who they are. In the case of India, despite agriculture’s continuing importance as a source of livelihood, there is little understanding of how many farmers there are in the country and who they are. This paper suggests that...

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Autores principales: Narayanan, Sudha, Saha, Shree
Formato: Conference Paper
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143023
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author Narayanan, Sudha
Saha, Shree
author_browse Narayanan, Sudha
Saha, Shree
author_facet Narayanan, Sudha
Saha, Shree
author_sort Narayanan, Sudha
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description A fundamental prerequisite for designing public for farmers is that we know who they are. In the case of India, despite agriculture’s continuing importance as a source of livelihood, there is little understanding of how many farmers there are in the country and who they are. This paper suggests that there are three constructs of farmers – a statistical construct – that national agencies deploy for different surveys, a programmatic construct – that governments use to define beneficiaries and a construct that derives from the complex reality of what farming entails, that researchers often rely on. In the context of India these constructs don’t often align with one another. This has important implications for policies that end up, often by construction, being exclusionary. This paper suggests the need for a coherent set of definitions. Too often, researchers call for collection of more or better data in response to the limitations of existing surveys. We argue that existing surveys can be leveraged to generate better estimates that match not just the requirements of programmatic goals but also to reflect the realities of farmer identities better.
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spelling CGSpace1430232024-10-25T08:04:34Z How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data Narayanan, Sudha Saha, Shree data farmers households agriculture subsidies statistics A fundamental prerequisite for designing public for farmers is that we know who they are. In the case of India, despite agriculture’s continuing importance as a source of livelihood, there is little understanding of how many farmers there are in the country and who they are. This paper suggests that there are three constructs of farmers – a statistical construct – that national agencies deploy for different surveys, a programmatic construct – that governments use to define beneficiaries and a construct that derives from the complex reality of what farming entails, that researchers often rely on. In the context of India these constructs don’t often align with one another. This has important implications for policies that end up, often by construction, being exclusionary. This paper suggests the need for a coherent set of definitions. Too often, researchers call for collection of more or better data in response to the limitations of existing surveys. We argue that existing surveys can be leveraged to generate better estimates that match not just the requirements of programmatic goals but also to reflect the realities of farmer identities better. 2021-04-01 2024-05-22T12:11:35Z 2024-05-22T12:11:35Z Conference Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143023 en Open Access Narayanan, Sudha; and Saha, Shree. 2021. How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data. Presented at the 2nd International Symposium on Work in Argiculture in Clermont-Ferrand, France, March 29-April 1, 2021. https://symposium.inrae.fr/workinagriculture-iswa/content/download/4945/70241/version/1/file/WS1_S1_Narayanan_Long%20paper.pdf
spellingShingle data
farmers
households
agriculture
subsidies
statistics
Narayanan, Sudha
Saha, Shree
How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title_full How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title_fullStr How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title_full_unstemmed How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title_short How many farmers are really there in India? A critical assessment of nationally representative data
title_sort how many farmers are really there in india a critical assessment of nationally representative data
topic data
farmers
households
agriculture
subsidies
statistics
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/143023
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