Agrarian Crisis: Agricultural land conversion for non-agricultural purposes and impact on the farm families and current

use of such lands. ABSTRACT

At the present hour the conversion of agricultural land for non-agricultural use has been arguably the most widespread picture in India. The increase in land use for non-agricultural purposes has been caused largely by the rapid expansion of urban settlements, real estate acquisition, Special Economic Zones and stand-alone industrial sites. Among the factors contributing to these changes, ruralurban migration, rapid urbanization resulting in huge demand for shelter in urban areas on one side and unfavorable agricultural produce prices, decline in agricultural production due to vagaries of weather, increase in poverty and loss of fertile lands for non agricultural purposes are among the most important. This phenomenon is very common and apparent in all major urban conglomerates and ever expanding metropolitan cities. Hyderabad Metropolitan City is no exception and its expansion has gobbled up huge tracts of fertile lands around the city perimeter. This expansion has also reported to have affected the fresh vegetable supply to the city population as the converted lands into urban uses used to produce very good fruits and vegetables. Ever expanding Hyderabad city has put enormous strain on the farmers, farming and other landbased livelihoods in areas around the city, especially residents of Rangareddy, Medak and Nalgonda districts. Industrial corridors have become a major source of stress on agriculture. However, it is expected that the farm lands being bought for urban use would have fetched very attractive price per unit of land and that proceeds of selling land, i.e. the only asset of the farmers, ought to have been put to productive use and would have created better income generating assets. However, it is the experience that the sudden windfall of selling the land by the farmers is spent unproductively and over a period of time they fall back into a much distressed situation. On the other hand, the converted land into non-agricultural purposes is lost out from agricultural production and thus less of food to the urban populace. This is causing agrarian crisis on two fronts i.e. debilating farmers livelihoods and food security issues. The available literature is sparse on the issue of socio-economic life of such farmers who have sold out their land and also the impact on supply of vegetables and other produce to the growing urban population, which might have forced for huge import from other areas or from outside the country. There is a grave need to assess situation in order to proactively formulate land conversion policies to limit the damage and better aid the sellers to put the sale proceeds for productive and income generating assets. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of agricultural land conversion for non-agricultural purposes on socio-economic aspects of farmers in and around Hyderabad and impact of such conversion on food supply to the urban areas. To these ends, the study employs two research methodologies. First, the quantitative analysis which would access the total agricultural land and its capacity of food production before and after the conversion. Second, in the qualitative analysis research tools like participatory rural appraisal, focused group discussion would be conducted to understand the reasons for agrarian crisis in the rural areas

and impact of agricultural land conversion. This study would lead us to understand and solve the crisis met by the farmers living around the cities but not involved in any agricultural activities. Keywords: Agrarian Crisis, Distressed farmers, land conversion for non agricultural purposes, policies, socio economic condition.