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Most Indian farmers have tiny farms that yield meagre incomes. They face a multiplicity of risks, which jeopardises even these low incomes. These twin pressures are particularly acute in eastern India, manifest in the two states that were the focus of our study, Bihar and Odisha. With nearly 80% of the population in Bihar and 70% in Odisha still engaged in agriculture, increasing farmers’ incomes in these two states is critical.
Agriculture policies in India have largely focused on three policy tools to increase (and stabilise) farmers’ incomes: decreasing input costs through input subsidies, improving crop yields through better seeds and farming practices, and increasing output prices while stabilising incomes through the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and procurement. More recently, policy has begun to pay attention to getting farmers a greater share of the marketed surplus, which has led to renewed concerns about the state of agriculture markets, the focus