Levels of living of farmers in rural Punjab

The objective of the present paper is to analyze the levels of living of the farmers namely landless, marginal, small, medium and large farmers of Rural Punjab. The present study is based on 631 farm households and relates to the year 2010-11. The study concludes that average household income and per capita income is directly related with the farm-size. The average household and per capita consumption expenditure on non-durables, durables, services and marriages and other socio-religious ceremonies follows trend starting with the landless farmers and ending with the large farmers. Majority of landless farmers are living below the poverty line because of lack of productive asset, i.e. land. The percentage share is higher among marginal and small farmers as compared to medium and large farmers because of small and uneconomic size of landholdings, more illiteracy, lack of gainful employment opportunities, etc.The concentration of debt within various categories has also been studied in this paper.