4.5 Commercialization of Agriculture

Commercialization of Agriculture

2020-04-27 15:03:17

  • 1900-1939 area under irrigation doubled
  • 1947 : 25% total cropped ar was under public irrigation
  • Public investment was guided by profitability factor + extreme contingencies

Features of Agricultural Investment

  • Favoured rich farmers
  • Imran Ali - Punjab canal colonies benefited most from it
  • Aggregate yields were static
  • Indigo never functioned as a proper plantation economy
  • Planters forced cultivators and were exploitative and coerive -> Rebellion 1859 : 7.5 Indigo Rebellion 1859-1860
  • Along w/ Indigo they were forced to cultivate other cash crops
  • Cotton boom 1860s -> inc in demand and investment when the American Civil War ended so did the boom. Demand dried, prices of good inc, unemployment rampant, inflation.

Jute in East IN

collapse: open

-   **Sugata Bose** : boom 1906- 1913 primary producers could not reap benefits, manufacturers and exporters exercised control over prices.
- **Tirthankar Roy** : total income inc, inc in value added, transition from pre capitalist to capitalist did not fully take place, however there rose a powerful rural capitalist class and proletarianisation of peasantry
  • Jute economy crashed in 1930s
  • By end 80% cropped acreage was still food crops
  • 1920s Calcutta based Marwaris started investing in Jute that challenged British capital but it was limited to low investment/ smaller mills.

Cotton Industry

  • 3 phases
  • begin 1870s - 1880s
  • 1890s diversifiation beyond Bombay viz Sholapur, Kanpur
  • 1930s withstood depression then expanded

PYQs

  1. Bring out the pattern of commercialization of agriculture in the 19th century. Was it a forced process for the vast majority of poorer peasants? [1986, 60m]
  1. What do you mean by commercialization of Indian Agriculture? Discuss its result. [2006, 60m]
  1. To what extent did the process of commercialization of agriculture affect the rural scene in India? [2010, 30m]