Bina Agarwal
Can group farms outperform individual family farms? Empirical insights from India
University of Manchester
alternative model small family farming could provide sustainable livelihoods millions resourceconstrained often nonviable smallholders developing countries could group farming constitute alternative wherein smallholders voluntarily pool land labour capital create larger farms manage collectively south asia instance 85 farmers small increasingly female potentially group farming could provide economies scale dependable labour force investible funds skills greater bargaining power governments markets potential realised practice particular group farms economically outperform small family farms rare opportunity test provided two experiments begun 2000s indian states kerala telangana constituted women groups lease land farm collectively sharing labour cost inputs returns states differ several respects including technical support groups receive institutional base composition land access cropping patterns based authors primary sample surveys states paper compares productivity profitability group farms small individual family farms state keralas groups perform strikingly better predominantly malemanaged individual farms annual value output per hectare annual net returns per farm telangana group farms perform much worse individual farms annual output equivalent net returns states groups much better commercial crops traditional foodgrains largely malemanaged individual farms owning good quality land longer farm management experience advantage factors underlying differential performances kerala telangana lessons learnt possible replication also discussed overall paper demonstrates group farming provide effective alternative subject specified conditions adaptation model local context