INCOME AND LIVELIHOOD ISSUES OF TRIBAL FARMERS IN JHARKHAND
Tribal farmers' income is unstable, which has a negative impact on their livelihoods by limiting their access to health, education, housing, employment, savings, and investment. Our tribal farmer suffers from low income due to low productivity due to less fertile land, less use of manure, dependency on monsoons, backward technology, and unproductive use of debt. Thus, we see that there are various income and livelihood issues for tribal farmers in Jharkhand. All these issues can be shortened if we adopt the bottom-up effect. The bottom-up effect is the way in which the base farmer will be involved in agricultural development. At the farmer level, basic needs will be met with the help of real penetration of funds through banks and other financial institutions such as NABARD. As reported by NABARD, the share of small and middle-level farmers' accounts in the total number of accounts financed by all agencies grew from 60.07 percent in 2015-16 to 72.06 percent in 2016-17. And banks across the country have provided loans totaling 26,848.13 crores (Agriculture Credit to Farmers in India—NABARD, https://www.nabard.org/news-article). Currently, India's banks and financial institutions contribute almost 36 percent of the debt on the accounts of tribal farmers. Thus, this research paper has tried to discuss the income and livelihood issues of tribal farmers in Jharkhand and also suggest remedies to resolve these issues.
Tribal Income; Livelihood; Penetration of Fund; Base Farmers; Agricultural Development.