Tenancy Relations In Backward Agriculture

This study is a modest attempt to explore the typical tenancy contracts in rural Assam tracing back to the history of evaluation in the pre-British era and to provide empirical answers to a number of theoretically established propositions that are subjected to much controversy. The book lays out a broad theoretical discussion on the issues involved in the sharecropping efficiency and interlinked credit transactions. The empirical evidence and the subsequent economic reasoning suggest that the Marshallian and related disincentive effects of sharecropping are of limited importance in the study area and so this institution can not necessarily be interpreted as detrimental to the overall development of the rural economy of Assam. The study also highlights the informal credit arrangements in rural Assam with its possible interlinkages to land and labour markets and brings out the potential threat of land alienation that is emanating from the practice of informal credit transactions under the system of usufructuary mortgage of land. Finally, an attempt has been made to explain the incidence of tenancy in Assam within a theoretical framework by identifying the key variables determining the extent of tenancy. It has been argued that family resources, particularly the owned land, the number of agricultural workers and bullock endow-ment, and, human resources, specifically the level of education of the farmers, influence the leasing decision in rural Assam.

Pravat Kumar Kuri was born (1963) and educated in West Bengal. He obtained a Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Burdwan and was awarded University Gold Medal & Jowhar Memorial Medal (1986). He did M.Phil (1993) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata and Ph.D. from the University of Burdwan (2000). He started his teaching career as Lecturer at Government College, Itanagar, in 1992 and after that he taught Economics at the post-graduate level of Arunachal University for more than a decade. Dr. Kuri is currently working as Reader in the Department of Economics, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong. He was also an Associate Fellow, Inter-University Centre of UGC at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. He is co-author of a book, Land Reform in Arunachal Pradesh, and has published a number of research articles in reputed journals of Social Science. Dr. Kuri is actively engaged in research and participated in a number of national and international seminars/ Conferences. His areas of research interest include Agricultural Economics/ Institutional Economics/Resources and Environ-mental Economics.