Abstract
By examining the changing land sale market in six villages of Maharashtra, in the context of legal restrictions on the purchase of agricultural land by non-agriculturists, the chapter reports a sudden rise in land prices during the late reforms period, i.e. 2001 to 2017. This rise in land prices is unrelated to the net return from the land and is instead caused by demands from non-cultivating households and speculative trading. The purchased land by the non-cultivators is mostly left fallow or is leased-out. Such changes tend to exclude the small cultivators and will have an adverse impact on the equity and inclusiveness in agriculture. The legal restriction on the purchase of agricultural land by the non-agricultural households seems to have limited effect.
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Notes
- 1.
The average price of agricultural land per acre in India is close to the price of Illinois, a high-productive corn-belt state in the United States, and is more than the average prices in Spain, France and Germany. But the productivity of land in India is much lower than in the above countries (Chakravarty 2013).
- 2.
Section 63 of the Maharashtra Tenancy and Agricultural Lands Act 1948 barred transfer of Agricultural lands to Non-Agriculturist without the permission of the Collector or Officer authorized by the State Government. Later on, with the effect of an amendment, section 63-1A provided for transfer of Agricultural land to Non-Agriculturist for bonafide industrial use and for special township projects, notwithstanding the bar u/s 63 of the Act.
- 3.
The extent of agricultural land sale is the percentage share of total agricultural land area sold in total cultivable area (net sown area plus total fallow land) during an agricultural year in the village. This explains the intensity of sale market for agricultural land in the village.
- 4.
- 5.
The annual net income on the unit land is calculated as surplus over A2 cost that is total annual output value minus total annual paid-out cost on a unit area of land.
- 6.
For the purpose of simplicity, the calculation avoids the interest component of the income from the land.
- 7.
As per section 10(1) in Income Tax Act 1961, agricultural income earned by the taxpayer in India is exempt from tax.
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Acknowledgement
This work is part of ICSSR-sponsored project on “Land Markets, Rising Agricultural Land Prices and Implications for Agricultural and Allied Productive Activities: A Comparative Study of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra”.
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Rao, C.S. (2020). Agricultural Land Markets in India: A Case of Maharashtra. In: Mishra, D., Nayak, P. (eds) Land and Livelihoods in Neoliberal India. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3511-6_8
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