India’s Agrarian Crisis and Corporate-Led Contract Farming: Socio-economic Implications for Smallholder Producers

Abstract

The paper discusses India’s agrarian crisis and the role of corporate-led contract farming in addressing these crisis. A two-stage Heckman model was used to explain determinants of participation in contract farming, and whether participation in contract farming affects farm income. The results indicate that contract farming has a positive impact on crop productivity and farm income. The socio-economic factors that influenced participation in contract farming were education, age, farm size, access to institutional credit, source of off-farm income and membership to an organization. Factors related to the likelihood of participation in contract farming slightly differed from the factors affecting farm income.Agrarian crisis, Smallholder producer, Corporate-led contract farming, Agricultural Produce Marketing (APMC) Act, Heckman model, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Marketing, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Q10, Q13,