Livelihood security of farm households in Southern dry zone of Karnataka - An economic analysis

Abstract

Indian agriculture is characterized with huge labour force, rank first with the world’s highest net cropped area and rank second in farm output in the world. However, agricultural growth in India is decelerating every year (12.89 % in 1975 to 2.1 % in 2017) (www.indianstat.com) and at the same time the government is trying hard to double the farm income. Hence, there is a need to integrating different farming systems to provide better livelihood is the need of hour to enhance the farm income (Harishkumar et al., 2016). Farming system is the result of interaction among several interdependent components like crops, dairy, poultry, sericulture, piggery, sheep, goat, fisheries, bee-keeping etc. (Norman, 1978). Livelihood refers to adequate stock and flow of food and cash with an individual to meet their basic needs and livelihood security means secured ownership of, access to resources and income earning activities, including reserves and assets to offset risk, ease shocks and meet contingencies (Shyamli et al., 2013; Ijarotimi and Oyeneyin, 2005). The concept of household livelihood security allows for a more comprehensive understanding of poverty, malnutrition, dynamic and complex strategies that the people use for survival. With this background, effort is made to International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 8 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com