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Agriculture and Production Process: A Comparative Study Of Three Villages Of Maharasthra
This paper is based on an intensive study of three villages of the Maharashtra state of India.The selected villages differ from each other on the basis of irrigation facility and development of agriculture. The first village is selected amongst the villages having canal irrigation facility where as the second village is selected from the ground water irrigated villages category. The third village is selected amongst the dry villages which completely depend upon the monsoon for its sustenance agriculture.
The data collected from the field reflects wide variation in the production process of the village agriculture. The canal irrigated village cultivators are more tempted to go for cash crops like, Sugarcane, Soybean, Wheat and other staple food crops because of assured irrigation facitities, where as the ground water irrigated village, cultivators are growing crops like, vegetables, cotton, Turmeric and other staple food crops. The Ground water is costly and not available so easily. In the Canal and Groundwater irrigated villages, cultivators apply more fertilizers, pesticides, and use modern agricultural implements and depend upon hired labourers in the production process. The third, dry village cultivators are cultivating the crops like, Cotton, Soybean and other staple food crops completely depending upon monsoon. The production process in the dry village reveals that the agriculture depends upon monsoon with traditionalpracice.
The above study reveals that assured irrigation facility has a definite impact on the production process. It has diversified agricultural economy by encouraging farmers to go for cash crops having market demand. Productivity of crops have increased many fold and there by helped in increasing net income of the farmers. This scenario is different in the dry village, as agriculture depends completely on vagaries of nature.