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The Story of Village Palampur
The Story of Village Palampur
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What are the different factors of production?
The first requirement is land and other natural resources such as water,
forests, and minerals.
The second requirement is labour. Production activities require skilled
and unskilled workers.
The third requirement is physical capital. Physical capital is the variety of
inputs required at every stage during production. It comprises of fixed
capital and working capital.
The fourth requirement is human capital. We need a knowledgeable and
skillful entrepreneur to put together land, labour, and physical capital for
production of goods and services.
7. Why are the wages for farm labourers in Palampur lesser than the
minimum wages set by the government?
The wages for farm labourers in Palampur are lesser than the
minimum wages because there exists heavy competition for work
among the farm labourers.
So, people agree to work for lower wages to sustain themselves.
8. What are the different ways of increasing production on the same land?
Use examples to explain.
The different ways of increasing production on the same piece of land
are by multiple cropping and modern farming methods.
Multiple Cropping : Under multiple cropping more than one crop is
grown on the same piece of land during a year.
Farmers in Palampur grow two main crops due to the availability of
irrigation facilities.
Modern farming methods: By adopting modern farming methods
production can be increased.
For this HYV seeds, which produce greater amount of grains on a
single plant should be used to get more yield and increase
production.
This requires the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and
bringing the land under irrigation.
In Palampur, the yield of wheat grown from the traditional varieties
was 1300 kg per hectare. With the HYV seeds, the yield went up to
3200 kg per hectare.
The Green Revolution in India is a remarkable example of it.
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9. What is Green Revolution?
The Green Revolution was introduced to attain self-sufficiency in
foodgrains in the late 1960s by cultivating wheat and rice using high
yielding varieties of seeds.
Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh were the first to try out
the modern farming methods in India.
The farmers in these regions set up tube wells for irrigation and made
use of HYV seeds (which yielded much greater amount of grains on a
single plant ), chemical fertilizers and pesticides in farming.
Thus, the same piece of land would now produce far larger quantities
of foodgrains than was possible earlier.
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The cost involved in traditional farming is less as they make use of
traditional seeds, natural manure, thus the cost of production is
lower.
The cost of production in modern farming is more and thus expensive
as they make use of HYV seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides
which needs to be procured.
13. How do the medium and large farmers obtain capital for farming? How is
it different from the small farmers?
The medium and the large farmers sell their surplus farm products
and have good earning which is saved in the banks.
The savings are used to obtain capital for the next season.
The production of small farmers from small size of their plot is not
enough to meet the market requirements.
After retaining a part of their produce for the family's consumption,
nothing is left to sell it in the market.
So, to obtain capital for farming a small farmer has to depend on a
large farmer, village money lenders, or the traders who supply the
various inputs for cultivation. The rate of interest is too high and they
are put in to great distress.
14. On what terms did Savita acquire a loan from Tejpal Singh? Would
Savita's condition be different if she could get a loan from the bank at a
low rate of interest?
Savita, a small farmer, in order to cultivate wheat on her one hectare
of land decides to borrow money from Tejpal Singh, a large farmer.
Savita got a loan from Tejpal Singh at an interest rate of 24% for 4
months which is at a high rate of interest.
Savita also had to promise to work on Tejpal Singh's field as s farm
labourer during the harvest season at INR100 per day.
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Savita's condition would have been different, had she loaned the
money from the bank, at a lower rate of interest.
She could have easily repaid the loan and saved money for her future
use and devoted more time on her own field.
15. What can be done so that more non-farm production activities can be
started in villages?
Banks must provide loan at lower rates of interest so that people
without savings can start non-farming production activities.
The government must set up rural workshops to enable villagers to
build on their skills and provide training.
There is a need to have markets for non-farm products where the
goods produced can be sold.
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