Large Farmers in Lease Market

The spurt in the significance of large farmers in the lease market between 1981-82 and 1991-92, noticeable from the NSS data, is a disquieting development. By taking advantage of the laws, the farmers can get conferred ownership or occupancy rights on the tenanted lands under their control, cause hardship to petty lessors (landlords), displace petty peasants from the lease market and expose poor tenants to a process of self-exploitation by vying with them for land in the lease market. Large farmers may contribute to capitalist development in agriculture. But development of capitalist relations may lead to proletarianisation of large sections of the rural working classes. There is a need to rid the large farmer of the lease market in the interest of the petty peasant. It seems important to make tenancy laws sufficiently stringent to restrict entry into the lease market only to petty peasants.