Agriculture in South India - notes

There is a huge population of Kannada speaking labourers in Hyderabad. They live in primitive conditions. In some cases their family life is a complete mess. Many of them own few acres of land in North Karnataka. But because of insufficient irrigation system and irregular Monsoon they had to abandon their land and migrate as coolie workers.

However, in my opinion, even with proper rains and irrigation system the prosperity of these farmers can not be guaranteed. Because of their limited land they would employ only limited resources. They most likely remain as stagnant farmers.

As I see it, in places like Karnataka we face two problems.
- Water
- Limited land of individual farmers

I have made the following observations:
1) In a water scarce land, a farmer with large landholdings still can survive and even prosper by using high technology.
2) But even in a water abundant land there is no guarantee for a farmer with limited land to reach sustainable prosperity. Few reasons for this:
(i) Not much use of high technology
(ii) Not much room for experimentation
(iii) Content, happy and petty life when the earning is below certain threshold.
All these contribute lower yield and lower profit.

But there is an additional point to (2)
2.a) A farmer with limited landholding in water abundant region can always sell his land and buy a greater stretch of land in water scarce region and become prosperous.

Bonafide Feudalism:
The best way to overcome the situation in Karnataka is to create a class of bonafide feudals. These bonfide feudals must be local to the region. More precisely, only officially Karnatakans are eligible to become bonfide feudals in Karnataka. Bonafide colonialism is not acceptable (even if the person is resident of India). The concept is simple and is generally employed by landless but money rich neo farmers. They lease the land from the farmers.

The salient features of this system:
- the land will never be owned by the bonafide feudals. They have to lease it every year.
- there is no upper limit for the acquisition of leased land.
- the farmers have to work for the feudals. The surplus farmers should work in any ventures that they run.
- all farmers' families must get monthly salary. A minimum monthly salary is a must under any conditions.
- the farmers' income is taxable but not bonafide feudals'.
- failure to pay minimum monthly salary will result in end of feudalism and the land will be available to a new feudal

Reference:
Bonafide Colonialism in Ukraine