How farm families earn, and what farming costs.
An Indian farm family lives on more than its crop. Wages, milk, a small shop and rent from leased-out land all add up, and the smaller the farm, the more the family leans on work outside it. A national survey of farm households counts every one of these sources, along with the land, the debts and the risks behind them.
A farm is one income among several
Picture a family in eastern Uttar Pradesh with less than a hectare. It grows paddy in the monsoon and wheat in winter, keeps a buffalo for milk, and one son works on construction sites in the town for part of the year. The crop brings money twice a year, at harvest; the wages and the milk arrive every week.
For a family like this, how much the land yields matters less than whether there is work nearby and what the milk fetches. Only on larger holdings does the crop become the main income.
Farming also has costs that never show up as cash. The family’s own labour, seed kept back from last year’s harvest, fodder grown on its own land: all of these have a value. Counting them changes how much farming really earns, especially for animals, where family members do most of the work.
Debt is the other side. Seed, fertiliser and a pump set are bought before the harvest pays for them, and the money often comes from a bank, a co-operative or a moneylender.
How to read the survey
Who counts as a farm household. The survey counts a rural household as agricultural if it earned more than ₹4,000 from farming in the last 365 days and at least one member worked on the farm on their own account. Families of farm labourers with no farm of their own are not included.
Monthly averages over a year. Income, costs and investment are averages per household per month, across the agricultural year from July to June. A family’s cash comes in lumps, at harvest and on pay day; the average smooths those out.
Two seasons, two visits. Survey staff visited each household twice: once for the monsoon (kharif) season and once for the winter (rabi) season. Crop questions use the season of the crop, so paddy figures come from the first visit and wheat from the second.
Check who is in the base. Income and debt are averaged over all farm households. Crop costs use only households that grow crops; animal receipts only those that keep animals; sales only those that sold. Each chart says which.
Land possessed. Land a household owns or rents in and can farm, less the land it rents out.
What the survey found
July 2018–June 2019The average farm household earned ₹4,063 a month from wages and ₹3,798 from its crops. Land makes the difference: households with ten hectares or more earned ₹60,758 a month, those with the smallest plots ₹7,522. And 70% of farm households possess less than a hectare.
Most paddy is sold to traders in the local market. Only 407 / 1,000 paddy sellers knew the minimum support price, and fewer still sold at it. Insurance is rare: 917 / 1,000 paddy growers had not insured their crop.
Commercial banks hold 45% of what farm households owe. Moneylenders hold 21%, more than co-operatives and regional rural banks combined.
Debt rises with land. A household with more land is both more likely to borrow and able to borrow much more, because land is what banks lend against.
How farm households earn
Wages bring in more than crops for the average farm household
Each source is net of the cash the household paid out for it. Pensions and money sent home by family members elsewhere are shown, but the survey leaves them out of its income total.
Income climbs steeply with land above a hectare
Households with almost no land live mostly on wages, which is why they earn more than those with a small plot. Above a hectare, crop income takes over.
Below a hectare, wages matter more than crops
Read the two halves together: wages stay roughly level across land sizes, while crop income rises with the land a household holds.
Counting the family’s own labour and inputs shrinks the return from farming
Valuing the family’s own inputs is not another cash payment. It shows what farming earns after paying for everything the household itself supplies, which matters most for animals, where family labour does most of the work.
Scheduled Caste farm households earn the least
An average hides the spread inside each group. Differences in land held explain part of the gap between groups.
Farm household income varies widely between states
State figures rest on smaller samples than the all-India figure. The survey groups the smaller north-eastern states and the union territories.
What farming costs, and what is invested
Hired labour and fertiliser are the largest cash costs of growing crops
These are cash payments only. The family’s own labour and saved seed are not in this chart.
Milk earns most of what animals bring in
These are gross receipts. Feed is by far the largest cash cost of keeping animals; the costs are in Every Cut.
Only larger farms add much to their productive assets
Net investment is spending on machinery, animals and other productive assets, less what the household got from selling them. It can be negative when a household sells more than it buys.
The land they hold
Most farm households possess less than a hectare
Land possessed includes land owned, land leased in and land otherwise held, less land leased out. It is the land a household can farm.
Land is mostly leased for fixed cash or a share of the crop
Shares of the leased area. Leases from relatives often carry no fixed rent at all.
Selling the harvest
Most paddy is sold in the local market
The kharif paddy crop of 2018. The local market includes traders and private buyers in the village and the nearest town.
When a sale disappoints, the price is usually the reason
The households’ own account of the sale. A price below the market is what the seller believed, not a measured gap.
Most paddy and wheat sellers did not know the support price
The minimum support price (MSP) is the price at which government agencies buy. Knowing it is a long way from selling at it.
Risk and insurance
Few farmers insure their crops
A farmer who takes a crop loan from a bank is usually insured with it. Insuring by choice means buying cover on top of that, or without a loan.
Not knowing about insurance is the commonest reason for going without
Each household gave one main reason. The two kinds of not knowing are separate answers in the survey.
Drought causes most paddy losses
Only households that lost part of their paddy crop are counted here.
What they owe
Commercial banks lend the most; professional moneylenders come next
These shares divide the money owed, not the households. Insurers, provident funds, employers, chit funds and self-help groups not linked to banks hold the remainder.
Bigger farms carry far bigger loans
The average includes households that owe nothing. Larger farms borrow more for machinery, inputs and land.
The more land a household holds, the likelier it is to owe money
Land is collateral: households with more of it can borrow more easily from banks.
Debt per farm household varies widely between states
State figures rest on smaller samples than the all-India figure. The average includes households with no loan.
Common misreadings
"Farmers live off their crops." For the average farm household, wages bring in more than crops. Crops become the main income only on larger holdings.
"Every rural family is a farm family." The survey leaves out households of farm labourers with no farm of their own, artisans and others. Their incomes are not in these figures.
"The average income is what a typical farm family earns." A small number of large farms lift the average well above what most families earn.
"Knowing the MSP means getting it." Many more sellers knew the support price than sold to the agencies that pay it.
"Moneylenders are gone." They still hold a large share of what farm households owe.
Every series, every cut
All 4,91,284 series behind this guide, from 81 files, at every level the source publishes them, including the ones no chart above draws. Find a state, an item or a sector, sort by the latest value or by the change on a year earlier, and download any file whole. A dash means no published figure for that cut, no figure for a year earlier, or a change that would mean nothing. Where a source explicitly leaves a survey cut unpublished, its known period and reason stay visible.
- 4,61,277 series: Agricultural and land/livestock survey: every archived joint cut 76 files, over 119 pages, filterable by file. Sortable and searchable.
- 30,007 series: Official report repairs and complementary tables 5 files, over 9 pages, filterable by file. Sortable and searchable.
Data and downloads
Every series this guide draws on: 81 files, 4,91,284 series. Each downloads as published, as JSON or as a table (CSV). Missing values are left empty, never zero. Large families of source tables are one row each; their files download from the family's own page.
| Data | Base | Coverage | Series | Vintage | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and land/livestock survey: every archived joint cutMoSPI, NSS 77 Situation Assessment and Land and Livestock Holdings. 76 files, listed on their own page 2019 to 2019, 76 files, 4,61,277 series, vintage Source revision date not published | 201976 files | 4,61,277 | Source revision date not published | All 76 files | |
| Official report repairs and complementary tables5 sources. 5 files, listed on their own page 2019 to 2019, 5 files, 30,007 series, vintage 2021-09-10 | 20195 files | 30,007 | 2021-09-10 | All 5 files |
Cite this guide
Measure of India, “Farm households”, mixed dated sources and unpublished revision dates. measure.thisindianlife.today/guides/farm-households/
Sources and method
Every figure comes from MoSPI’s Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households, NSS 77th round, with the land and livestock survey run alongside it. The charts above answer one question each; every published table and cut, state by state, is in the table above and the downloads. Where MoSPI’s online tables are wrong (the debt table repeats one state’s figures under every state, and the support-price and insurance tables carry muddled labels), the guide uses the matching tables of the printed report instead.
MoSPI: the survey report, with definitions, detailed tables and sample sizes. Farms covers national crop production; Household assets and borrowing covers the separate debt and investment survey.
Data revision date: Source revision date not published; MoSPI does not publish one for its online tables. Report published 2021-09-10; online tables copied by us on 2026-10-10. Official release.