Using the unit-level data from various rounds of the Employment and Unemployment Survey of the National Sample Survey Office, the first consistent time series of the average real farm income per cultivator for 18 major Indian states for 1987–88, 1993–94, 1999–2000, 2004–05, 2007–08, 2009–10, and 2011–12 is presented. Using this data, two sets of issues are studied. First, how