Rise in number of small, marginal farmers in Gujarat: Govt

The Gujarat government Thursday told the legislative Assembly that the agriculture census of 2015-16 has indicated a rise in the number of small and marginal farmers in the state.

Gujarat added over 2.02 lakh marginal farmers and 1.86 lakh small farmers between 2010-11 and 2015-16, Agricultural Minister R C Faldu told the Assembly while responding to a query by Kanti Parmar (Congress) during the Question Hour.

In his written reply, Faldu said as per the 2015-16 Agriculture Census, conducted by the central government, there were around 53.19 lakh registered farmers in the state.

Citing the provisional report of the census, he said the total number of cultivators in Gujarat has gone up from 48.85 lakh in 2010-11 to 53.19 lakh in 2015-16, showing a rise of around 4.34 lakh.

As per the data shared by Faldu, around 18.15 lakh marginal farmers were recorded during the 2010-11 census in Gujarat. This number reached 20.17 lakh in the last census, indicating a rise of 2.02 lakh marginal farmers.

Similarly, there were 14.29 lakh small agriculturists in 2010-11, which went up to 16.15 lakh in 2015-16, indicating a rise of 1.86 lakh.

Notably, the number of farmers having large land holdings dropped from 48,771 in 2010-11 to 39,893 in 2015-16, indicating a fall of 8,878, Faldu said in his written reply.

Small and marginal farmers are those who own less than two hectares of land.