Articles by Sheila Bhalla

To understand what has been happening to women's employment in agriculture, this paper presents the findings of a study in Haryana, a state where labour absorption rose rapidly until the mid-seventies, but is now falling. The one-year field survey, covering 153 villages in all, was carried out in 1972-73, that is, during the expansionary phase of labour absorption in Haryana agriculture. The findings deal with the demand for women workers in field crop operations and the supply behaviour of cultivating and landless agricultural labour households. Data relating to the occupational structure of female member's of cultivating and landless agricultural labour households are examined and an account is given of the seasonal occupational shift phenomenon, a dominant feature of the annual cycle of employment among landless women which has been very little discussed in the literature on the impact of the 'Green Revolution' on women's work. The paper concludes with some speculations about what may have happened in the period after the mid-seventies which was characterised, among other things, by a decline in per hectare labour absorption in the cases of most crops.

New Factors in Determination of Mode and Level of Rent Payments for Agricultural Land Sheila Bhalla Field survey data about the terms on which land is leased-in raises four main questions: (i) What accounts/ or the observed regional and acreage class variations in the relative importance of cash versus crop share rents in Haryana? (ii) What determines the share taken as rent under the crop share mode of payment? (iii) Why are cash rents significantly lower than the value of Crop share rents in Haryana and Punjab? (iv) Given that both the typical cash rents and the typical share crop rents are far below what the landowner could earn by selling his land and investing the proceeds in, say, a fixed deposit account why do not landlords sell?

Production, UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva,
V S Vyas, 'Structural Change in Agriculture and the Small Farms Sector', Volume XI , Nos 1 & 2, January 10,

Land Holdings in Haryana, 1962-72 Sheila Bhalla Seven important findings emerge from this study:
(1) The Green Revolution, by reducing the minimum acreage required for a viable holding, greatly accelerated the subdivision of family farms between 1961 and 1972. This is the dominant cause of the dramatic downward shift in the acreage structure of operated holdings during the decade.