To understand the changes in ownership of agricultural land and bovine
holding in India, analyses of agricultural census data were carried out with a view
to primarily providing some valuable inputs for the prospective policymakers in
the field of agro-livestock sector. The said analyses are mainly motivated towards
providing insights into the structure of rural ownership of agricultural lands and
associated structural changes that follow in bovine asset.
The study reveals that though the operational area remained constant, the
operational landholding increased by 8.5 million during 2005-06 to 2010-11 with
1.7 million holdings getting added every year, mostly as marginal holdings and to
a limited extent as small holdings. With an increase of about 7 per cent in number
of landholdings, the average holding per farm reduced to 1.16 hectare in 2010-11
from 1.23 hectare in 2005-06. In India, about 83 per cent of the operational holdings
are either marginal holdings (<1 hectare) or small holdings (<2 hectare) and they
collectively own only 40 per cent of the agricultural land. Only seventeen per cent
of the operational holdings have a holding size of more than 2 hectare but owning
60 per cent of the agricultural land. About 90 per cent of the operational land in
the country is cultivated and 47 per cent of the net sown area is irrigated. The small
and marginal holdings together constituting about 83 per cent own 70 per cent of
bovines, 76 per cent of goat and 70 per cent of sheep and this reinforces the
complementary relationship between agricultural land size and animal holding
size. About 43 and 28 per cent of the rural holdings were found to be keeping adult
cattle and buffalo, respectively. The combined incidence of adult bovine is found to
be in excess of 43 per cent. The State-wise analysis further confirms that the
marginalisation of agricultural holding is also a State phenomenon as is a national
phenomenon. However, there are some States that stand out conspicuously where
reverse trend is observed.