Family Size, Consumption Expenditure, Income, and Land Holding in an Agrarian Economy A Critique of Some Populist Notions S S Sivakumar An attempt is made here to understand the relationship between family size, consumption expenditure, income, and land holdings, among the peasantry in some villages in Tamil Nadu. This is done with a view to testing empirically some major populist formulations, Part I of this article briefly evaluates populist economic policy formulations for the development of agriculture in general.