Number Theory: The Kisan factor in Haryana elections - I

The first part looks at the importance (or lack of it) of farming in Haryana

All 90 assembly constituencies (ACs) of Haryana will go to polls on October 5. Farmers’ unrest is being dubbed as a key factor in the forthcoming elections where the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) is trying to form a government for the third consecutive time. How important is agriculture and associated fault lines in the state’s political economy? This two-part data journalism series will answer this question in detail by looking at various official statistics. The first part will look at the importance (or lack of it) of farming in Haryana and the second part will look at changes in Haryana’s agrarian economy in the more recent past.

PTI file photo

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  Agriculture is less important in Haryana in terms of overall employment and output share, but…

  A simple comparison of share of agriculture in total Gross State Value Added (GSVA) and employment shows that agriculture is not really important in Haryana’s overall economy. Among India’s 18 large states – with at least ten Lok Sabha constituencies – Haryana’s rank in terms of share of agriculture in state’s GSVA is eighth. When it comes to share of agriculture in total workforce, Haryana is ranked fifteenth. However, there is another statistic which sets Haryana apart from most Indian states. Notwithstanding its relatively low share of agriculture in overall output and employment, Haryana is ranked second (after Punjab) when it comes to GSVA in agriculture per agricultural worker. This means that agriculture is a significantly high value activity in Haryana compared to almost all of India.
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  ...a larger share of rural households in Haryana has a critical minimum stake in agriculture

  To be sure, reading too much into headline output and employment share of agriculture in a state can be a bit misleading as far as agriculture’s importance in a state’s political economy is concerned. Even if just one person in the household cultivates a farm, the agriculture sector can have importance for all members. This is where the National Sample Survey Office's (NSSO) classification of rural households as agricultural households in its Situation Assessment Surveys (SAS) is useful. The SAS classified a household as an agricultural household if its output from agricultural activities was ₹4,000 in 2018-19 ( ₹3,000 in 2012-13) and if had at least one member self-employed in agriculture. To be sure, there are also some criteria for exclusion, such as all agricultural workers of the household only being agricultural labourers or if the household's agricultural income was entirely from coastal fishing or agricultural services. A comparison of the 2012-13 and 2018-19 (latest available data) SAS data shows that Haryana is among the handful of states in the country where the share of agricultural households has not fallen between the last two rounds of the SAS. When it comes to share of agricultural households in total rural households, Haryana’s is seven percentage points ahead of the all-India number. This is unlike agriculture's share in overall jobs in the latest PLFS, where Haryana was 16 percentage points behind the all-India figure.
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  But Haryana has also seen faster diversification away from cultivation incomes between 2012-13 and 2018-19

  As the previous section suggests, a rural household being an agricultural household does not mean that it does not make any money from non-cultivation activities. The SAS gives a detailed break-up of income of agricultural households from different activities, which include cultivation, animal farming, wages and non-farm businesses. A comparison of 2012-13 and 2018-19 data shows that the share of cultivation income in total income of agricultural households had a larger fall in proportionate terms in Haryana than at the all-India level. However, as the first section suggests (and SAS data confirms this), cultivation incomes in absolute terms were still significantly higher in Haryana than at the all-India level. The data also shows that the share of wage incomes in overall incomes of agricultural households has seen a relatively faster growth in Haryana than at the all-India level during this period.
• The data presented in this series shows that while agriculture’s importance in Haryana’s overall economy is declining, it still is a much high-value proposition in Haryana than in the rest of the country. Are there specific and more recent factors in Haryana’s agriculture which will have an effect on the elections? This is what the next part of this series will try to answer.