Systems Of Land Ownership Individual ownership replaces comminuty ownership when agricultural land becomes scarce under the

increasing bruden of farm household on arable land. Individual ownership in India is associated with the breakdown of the joint family system, sedentary cultivation and the overspill off people from densely populated to the sparsely populated potential agricultural lands. Since agriculture is the mainstay of farmers, it is but natural that they should believe that one who owns wealth. The system of land ownership vary depending on various factor on the one hand and the reclamation and the reclamation and colonization of cultivable wasreland in new canal colonies on the other. In the letter, landlord ownership is prevalent. In India, however, the peasant-proprietorship predominates. These system of ownership have built-in superior and inferior proprietorship. Certain clasess, hewever, enjoy a superiority over the large body of the cultivator who till the land. The majority of cultivator of land are the inferior proprietors in the agricultural set up in the developing and underdeveloped countries. Others, such as tenants and lesses, have a transferable right to cultivation subject to a fixed rent in kind or cash, but the ownership of land is vested in superior propiertor, thet is, landlords. The dualism in the latter is not beneficial to land or crop production. The superior owners are the relics of an earlier society on account of the implementation of land reform measures. The occupancy tenants have been declared owners with a right of proprietorship on surplus areas of landlords after paying value for the land fixed by legislation. Hence, the number of inferior propiertors has increased. It is one of the major means of increasing production, as the cultivator himself reaps the whole crop. Under the new dispensation which has changed tenantculfivators into owner-cultivators, they have some psychological satisfaction of having been freed from their age-old bondage. This might indunce them to increase production perunit area. The urge is present, but the means lacking because in most of the cases the operational holdings area sub-marginal, marginal or small. Hence, these cultivator must be provided with financial and technical assistance by state agencies

to avoid nuder-utilization of cultivable area. Animal driven force and manpower are usually outside the purview of the state. The newly emerged owner-cultivatiors themselves have to procure them. The landlords and absentee owners, by tradition and habit, are not disposed to make mu contribution to agricultural development as they lack the qualities or the mental make-up of a farm entrepreneur. Land is best used by peasant-proprietors. Although their holdings are much smaller than those of the landlords, their gross income per unit area from cultivation and the absentee owners because of the latters disinterest and casual attitude. It has been observed that very small operational units now emerging as aresult of land reform legislation are not useful from the economic standpoint as these obstruct the implementation of package programmers. To overcome the problem faced by small operation holding, the community approach should be adopted by small farmer. The food and Agriculture Organization (under the United Nation) had spread the idea of the community approach among farmers in Nepal, Bangladesh, and The Philippines. It has been proposed todo the same in Indonesia also. Indian peasant-proprietors could get over much of the handing of shrinking land holdings if the community approach is adopted here. Size-clesswise Distribution of Holdings and Cultivated Area The Various report on land holding yield some valuable information on the distribution pattern based in the size-class of operation holdings. These reports show thet we have an acute problem posed by uneconomic, sub-marginal peasants. Fortunately enough, they hold a small percentage of cultivated area, particulary in the states of the Punjab and Haryana in Northwestern India. The Lorens curves in Fig. 4.9 confirm the inequalities in the distribution of cultivated area in various sizeclasses in Haryana. The average values of Ginis cancentration ratios turn out be around 0.51 for the years 1975-76 and 1986-78: an indication of the fact that there was a high concertration of holdings at the lower rung and of cultivated area at the

upper rung of the ladder. It has also been confirmed that even in India there was little change in this pattern. Unfortunately, the consistency in the spatial pattern of distribution established that the processes of diversification in rural economy and disagricultiralization were very weak in rural Haryana. On the onther hand, over twothirds of cultivated area was tilled by the upper size classes which contributed to ushering in the green revolution in the state. On the rough estimate (save the intensive irrigated areas) the minimum subsistence land for a family, under Indian condition, can be considered to be about ten acres (roughly four hectares). The present method of cultivation may justify this estimate (Bergman 1968). Assuming that the land holding of five hectares and above can be considered economically viable under normal conditions and methods of culture in India, there is a large number of uneconomic farmer of very small to moderately small and medium-size operational holdings. In terms of percentage of the area under plough, uneconomic farms are not common feature of agricultural landscape in India because of the domination of small peasants instead off small farms. Dantwala (1959) has rightly explained this inequality by reasoning that there are far too many persons who, in the absence of alternative opportunities of eployment, have performance taken to farming at the lowest rung of the ladder. The large proportion of uneconomic operation holding has repercussion on the economic structure of agriculture in India and elsewhere. Owing to the limited scale of their enterprise, peasants are unable to sell their produce in the markets at attractive price. Therefore, they cannot practice techniques of large-scale production as in other occupation. Furthermore, because of the seasonal nature of farming, capital equipment can only be used for short periods in the year, which precludes a high degree of economic efficiency in the use of capital equipment in comparison wih other industries. At the same time, the peasant-farm which is a family business has remained a reasonably efficient fromof small agricultural organization. This is because agricultural activities tend to favour individual small-scale techniques rather than methodologies of mass production.

The small size of land holding hampers the optimum use of owned capital, biochemical techniques, animal force for tilling and managerial talent. The Universal remedy suggested for the solution of the problem which small farmers have to face is the use of service co-operative or co-operative farming. Only through these agencies they can hardly be considered as permanent remedial devices for the problem faced by small farmers. On the other hand, in an area where agricultural prosperity is in evidence, the presence of viable units operating a large proportion of the cultivated area may be a common feature. The estention service of farm-labs should be active in familiarizing the eager farmer with the use of farm technology. Average Size of Operational Holdings An analysis of the average size of operational holding show the enormity and the seriousness of the land problems in the predominantly agrarian economy of India. The size of the farm decides the degree of risk that a farm operator may bear, i.e., larger the size of the farm, greater the capacity of the farmer to take the risk and vice versa. This in turn would affect the extent of specialization and also the quantity of equipment and power to be used. Moreover, size is linked with the preassure of population, the economic requerements and the fertility of land. In India the standard size of a farm thet would be most suitable to agriculture cannot be maintained because of the increasing hold of the rural community on arable land and the operation of the Hindu Law of Inheritance. These two factor lead to the division of holdings into small, often widely separated fragments which fail to conform ro any reasonable economic standard from the point of view of agricultural operation. The size of the faem is one if the important factor which influence the farmers decisions regarding agricultural work, and determines his income from farming. This explain why analysis of such arelationship had been the perpetual theme of study in agricultural economic in the past. In recent times, however, the size of farm has been give greater importance, as on account of high rpices, land has become scarce as compared to family labour. Therefore, any increase in size of the

farm is not possible except by adding leased arable land. Consequently, the size of an operation farm includes the net tilled area of the land owned and the land leased in. In practice, each operational holding does not constitute a single farm. But, as is well know, it way comprose several plots of land lying at verying distances from each other. In India this is a matter of no small importance from the viempoint of management efficiency. The operational holdings, whether large or small, are also fragmented. To conclude, the size of a farm is an important consideration in determining the volume of agricultural productive. In recent time, land values have gone up, and land ceiling legislation has also been implement. Agricultural land has become relatively scarce as compared to family labour and capital, hence the former has assumed more significance. The possibilities of increasing the size of an operationa; holding in terms of hectareage are limited. Agricultural land has become relatively scarce as compared to family labour and capital, hence the former has assumed more significance. The possibilities of in creasing the size of and operational holding in term of hectareage are limited. The only way to increase agricultural productivity and privision of credit facilities to the sub-marginal, marginal and medium-size farms should be able to meet their economic needs. Provision of credit at low