Introduction of New Commercial Crops into a Rural Village: A Case of Horticulture Production in Dedaur Village, UP, India

Abstract

From the viewpoint of the food chain and based on an intensive survey, we discussed the growth of horticulture and the impact on remote rural villages. A case-study village was selected in Raebareli District, Uttar Pradesh, that is outside the area directly affected by big cities like Lucknow and Kanpur, in order to investigate the real situation of farmers engaged in the newly developed horticulture. According to the survey some farmers can get higher income from the recently introduced commercial crops such as banana, mango and menthol but the cost of cultivation is not small. Therefore, only higher-level farmers can introduce these high-income commercial crops and the lower-level ones cannot. In this sense the direct impact of the newly introduced commercial crops is exclusive to the higher-level farmers. But we focused on the increase in employment opportunities for agricultural laborers within the village. This is created by the commercial crop farming of higher-level farmers. Lower-level villagers cannot self-directively engage in agricultural labor in the horticultural sector, though the higher-level farmers can develop their self-directive farm management. However, in whatever form, expansion of cash income opportunities has brought chances to improve quality of life in remote rural areas where there are very few non-agricultural employment opportunities. It is important for the village to introduce commercial crops as a form of horticultural crop that needs much manpower to cultivate. Such crops carry significance for the village economy, more so than the traditional crops that have been mechanized and need little manpower to cultivate.