India's Farmer Population Down by 9 Mn in a Decade

Bangalore: The total number of farmers in 2013 is found to be lesser by nine million while compared to the total number twelve years back in 2001, reported Rukmini Shrinivasan for TNN. It was four decades ago when the number of farmers had seen a similar drastic fall. The last time that such a situation had occurred was in the year 1971.

According to a recent census data, there has been a steady fall in the proportion of the total workforce to the total number of cultivators.

The final numbers have been provided by the country’s Registrar General with regard to the population of India, its rates of literacy, sex ratio, number of workers and types of workers.

Workers were put under four categories namely cultivators, household industry workers, agricultural laborers and others. The total number of cultivators had come up to a hundred and nineteen million and this makes it the second largest among the four categories. However, while compared with the total workforce, they make up for less than a quarter of them. This shows a decline of seven percent while compared to where they stood in 2001.