Output, surpluses and ‘stressed commerce’: a study on farm viability and agrarian transition in West Bengal, India, in the new millennium

Abstract

This paper intends to evaluate at the farm level, in the current millennium, the nature of surpluses and the emerging exchange processes in agrarian West Bengal through the lenses of socio-economic class differentiation. The paper concentrates on the structure and pattern of gross value added, farm labour and farm-disposable surplus that accrue to the peasants along with their repercussions on farm viability. Finally, it addresses the consequences of stressed commerce (carried out through price shocks) on the ratio of retention of surplus at the farm level as a larger question of farm viability, agrarian transition and conflicts. The study emphasises the region with higher capitalistic1 development. The change in this region is found to be more significant in the context of agrarian transition. The same analysis is also followed for the more backward region, but just to put forward the distinction between the processes working in the two regions.