Department of Economics, Shathavahana University Karimnagar.
Globalisation is the new buzzword that has come to dominate the world since the nineties of the last century. The liberalization of India's economy was adopted by India in 1991. The impact of WTO can be observed in our economy. Over the years there has been a steady liberalisation of the current account transactions, more and more sectors opened up for foreign direct investments and portfolio investments facilitating entry of foreign investors in telecom, roads, ports, airports, insurance and other major sectors.
The irreversible role of globalization has thrown a number of challenges to the policy makers and administrators and farmers in all the developing countries and India is no exception. Hence there is a need to study the micro level problems of the sector to focus on the relevant issues on different levels. This paper has been made an attempt to highlight the impact of globalization, especially on small and marginal farmers.
The present study, which is in micro level, intends to explore the impact of WTO on agriculture. This study basically depends on the primary data collected from the agricultural farmers of the Ramadugu mandal in the Karimnagar District, 50 agricultural farmers are selected on random basis, and a pre tested structured questionnaire has been administered.
This paper focuses on socio economic profile of the farmers and cropping pattern, yield and income and expenditure levels, and size of the land holdings along with the credit source before and after 1995. The paper observes that there is a need for revitalization of agriculture and more institutional finance, crop, medical and health insurance for the farmers.
The paper also concludes that there is an urgent need to evolve appropriate policy measure to equip the farmers to meet the growing challenges in the context of an ongoing globalization process in the country, with a multi pronged policy to make the agriculture sustainable and competitive.
