Commercialisation of agriculture

Topic: Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence"; Class 11, Ch 5 "Rural Development"

Meaning

Commercialisation of agriculture is when farmers stop growing mainly food crops for their own family and start growing crops for sale in the market (cash crops).

Under British rule this change was mostly "forced". Cash revenue, debt and pressure from planters pushed peasants into it, and the crops fed British industries, not Indian farmers. It matters because it weakened food security and was a direct cause of colonial famines.

Explanation

How it worked under colonial rule

• Cash crops are crops grown for sale, not for the farmer's own use.
• The main colonial cash crops and what they were used for:

Crop	Main use / destination
Jute	Sacks and packing material; Bengal
Cotton	British textile mills (Lancashire)
Indigo	Blue dye for British cloth; Bengal, Bihar
Sugarcane	Sugar
Opium	Exported to China
Tea	Plantations in Assam and the hills

• Railways spread the change:
• Railways linked villages to the ports.
• Raw cotton and jute became cheap to send to Britain.
• Villages that once fed themselves now depended on markets, so village self-sufficiency broke down.

"Forced" commercialisation: the three drivers

• Forced commercialisation means peasants moved to cash crops because they were pushed, not because the market gave them a better chance.
• Driver 1: land revenue in cash
• Land revenue had to be paid in money, not in grain.
• So the peasant had to grow something he could sell quickly.

• The revenue deadline was fixed, so he often sold right after harvest, when prices were lowest.

• Driver 2: debt

• Peasants borrowed from moneylenders to pay revenue and meet daily needs.
• Moneylenders wanted repayment in cash crops, or bought the crop cheap in advance.

• This created a debt trap (a cycle where the loan can never be fully repaid), which kept the peasant on cash crops.

• Driver 3: coercion by planters. Indigo is the key case.

• Planters persuaded or forced ryots (peasant cultivators) to sign contracts to grow indigo on the best part of their land instead of food crops [4].
• Ryots were paid less for indigo than they could earn from rice or other crops [4].
• In Champaran, under the Tinkathia system, a tenant was bound by law to grow indigo on 3 out of every 20 parts of his land for the landlord [5].

NCERT's verdict: little gain for the farmer

• Some areas had higher yields of cash crops.
• This hardly helped farmers. The output went to British industries, and the farmer got a low price.
• Only a small section of farmers changed what they grew.
• Most tenants (farmers who rent land), small farmers and sharecroppers (farmers who pay the landowner a share of the crop as rent) did not change. They lacked:
• resources: money for seed, manure and irrigation
• technology: better tools and methods

• incentive: the landlord or moneylender took most of any extra income

• So commercialisation happened alongside agricultural stagnation (farming that does not grow or improve), not real farm growth.

Effects: from cash crops to famine

• Less land under food crops, so less food was grown for local use.
• More exposure to world prices:
• When cotton or jute prices fell abroad, the peasant's income fell.
• The revenue demand did not fall.

• So the peasant was squeezed from both sides.

• Weaker food security. Food security means everyone always has enough food at prices they can afford.

• No reserve left:
• Cash revenue plus debt left the peasant with no stored grain and no savings.
• A single bad season could turn into a famine (a severe food shortage that causes mass hunger, disease and death).

In India

• Indigo Revolt (1859-60), Bengal:
• It began in March 1859 as a non-violent strike. Ryots of a village in Nadia district agreed to stop growing indigo [4].

• It spread to other indigo districts of Bengal. At first many zamindars supported it because they resented the planters' growing power [4].

• Champaran Satyagraha (1917), Bihar:

• It was Gandhi's first satyagraha (non-violent resistance) campaign in India, and it succeeded in changing government policy [4].

• The reforms were written into the Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918. It abolished tinkathia and let tenants grow crops of their choice [5].

• Famines under colonial rule, made worse by commercialisation and harsh policy:

• Bengal, 1770: under East India Company rule. High land revenue was strictly collected even during mass starvation. Nearly one-third of the population died [6].
• Great Famine, 1876-78: Madras and Bombay Presidencies and Mysore [7]. It led to the Strachey Commission.

• Bengal, 1943: about 3 million people died, even though there was no major fall in food production [2]. British authorities stockpiled food for troops, exported food to forces in the Middle East, and took away boats, carts and elephants in Chittagong [2].

• Official response:

• Strachey Commission (1880) led to the Indian Famine Code (1883). The Code graded food shortages by severity and listed the steps governments had to take once a famine was declared [3].

• Later bodies: Lyall Commission (1898), MacDonnell Commission (1901) and Woodhead Commission (1944) on the Bengal famine, whose Final Report came out in 1945 [8].

• After independence, food security measures, from the Green Revolution to public food stocks, made large famines a thing of the past.

Don't confuse with

• Market-led commercialisation vs forced commercialisation: in the market-led kind, the farmer chooses cash crops because they pay more. In colonial India the shift was mostly forced by cash revenue, debt and planter coercion.
• Agricultural growth: commercialisation changes what is grown. It does not mean more output or higher farm incomes. In colonial India it came with agricultural stagnation.
• Food Availability Decline (FAD) vs entitlement failure: FAD blames famine only on a fall in food supply. Amartya Sen's entitlement approach (Poverty and Famines, 1981) says famine is a collapse of the poor's command over food through wages, own crops or selling assets. Bengal 1943 was an entitlement failure [2].
• Tinkathia vs Indigo Revolt contracts: tinkathia was a legal duty in Champaran (Bihar) to grow indigo on 3/20 of the land [5]. The Bengal indigo system worked through planter contracts forced on ryots [4].

Prelims Hooks

• Commercialisation of agriculture means a shift from food crops to cash crops for sale. Under colonial rule it was mostly "forced" by cash revenue, debt and planter coercion.
• Trap: "Commercialisation raised the incomes of most Indian farmers" is false. Only a small section changed crops, and the gains went to British industry.
• Indigo Revolt (1859-60) began in March 1859 in Nadia district, Bengal, as a non-violent strike by ryots [4].
• Tinkathia meant growing indigo on 3/20 of the land in Champaran. It was abolished by the Champaran Agrarian Act, 1918 [5].
• Champaran (1917) was Gandhi's first satyagraha in India [4]. It was not his first satyagraha overall; that was in South Africa.
• Bengal famine 1943: about 3 million deaths with no major fall in food production [2]. Strachey Commission (1880) led to the Famine Code (1883) [3].

Mains Points

• Commercialisation was forced, not market-led.
• Cash revenue, moneylender debt and planter coercion (the indigo contracts and tinkathia [4][5]) pushed peasants into cash crops.
• The result was weaker food security and stagnant farming, not rural prosperity.

• This is useful for GS-I/III answers on the colonial drain (the flow of India's wealth to Britain) and agrarian distress.

• Famines were policy failures more than failures of nature.

• Revenue was strictly collected during the 1770 famine [6].
• In 1943, food was stockpiled and exported, and boats were taken away, even though production had not fallen [2].

• This supports Sen's view that entitlements, not food supply alone, decide who starves.

• Link to policy today:

• Sen's lesson explains why India focuses on purchasing power, through wage employment such as MGNREGA, and on public distribution of cheap grain, and not only on higher output.
• The Famine Code's relief through wage works [3] was an early form of this idea.
• A GS-II/III answer can contrast colonial rule-based relief with today's rights-based approach, and use Sen's argument that democracy and a free press help prevent famine.

Related concepts

• Cash crops
• Famine

Read more

• Commercialisation of agriculture and famines