The Story of Village Palampur

Q41. What are the problems faced by farm labourers in Palampur?

Ans. Problems of farm labourers:

                        i.        Farm labourers come either from landless families or families cultivating small plots of land.

                       ii.        Unlike farmers, farm labourers do not have a right over the crops grown on the land.

                      iii.        Instead they are paid wages by the farmer for whom they work. Wages can be in cash or in kind e.g. crop. Sometimes labourers get meals also.

                      iv.        Wages vary widely from region to region, from crop to crop, from one farm activity to another.

                       v.        There is also a wide variation in the duration of employment.

Q42. Farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh were rewarded with high yields of wheat. Why?

Ans. Reasons for high yields

                        i.        HYV seeds promised to produce much greater amounts of grain on a single plant. As a result, the same piece of land would now produce far larger quantities of food grains than was possible earlier.

                       ii.        HYV seeds, however, needed plenty of water and also chemical fertilizers and pesticides to produce best results.

                      iii.        Farmers of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh were the first to try out the modern farming method in India.

                     iv.        The farmers in these regions set up tubewells for irrigation, and made use of HYV seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides in farming.

                      v.        Some of them bought farm machinery like tractors and threshers, which made ploughing and harvesting faster.

Q43. How do the medium and large farmers obtain capital for farming? How is it different from the small farmers?

Ans. Medium and Large farmers

Large and medium farmers sell the surplus farm products. A part of the earnings is saved and kept for buying capital for the next season. Thus, they are able to arrange for the capital for farming from their own savings. Some farmers give away the small savings to small farmers as loan at high interest rates and get back the amount by next season.

Small farmers

Most small farmers have to borrow money to arrange for the capital. They borrow from large farmers or the village moneylenders or the traders who supply various inputs for cultivation. The rate of interest on such loans is very high. They are put to great distress to repay the loan.

Q44. What is physical capital? What are its different types?
Or
Explain the term physical capital. Mention the different types with examples.
Or
What are the items that come under physical capital?

Ans. The third requirement is physical capital, i.e. the variety of inputs required at every stage during production.

(a) Tools, machines, buildings: Tools and machines range from very simple tools such as a farmer’s plough to sophisticated machines such as generators, turbines, computers, etc. Tools, machines, buildings can be used in production over many years, and are called fixed capital.

(b) Raw materials and money in hand: Production requires a variety of raw materials such as the yarn used by the weaver and the clay used by the potter. Also, some money is always required during production to make payments and buy other necessary items. Raw materials and money in hand are called working capital.

Q45. Explain the economic conditions of the village Palampur.

Ans. Economic conditions of the village Palampur

                        i.        This village has about 450 families belonging to several different castes. The 80 upper caste families own the majority of land in the village.

                       ii.        Their houses, some of them quite large, are made of brick with cement plastering.

                      iii.        The SCs (dalits) comprise one third of the population and live in one corner of the village and in much smaller houses some of which are of mud and straw.

                      iv.        Most of the houses have electric connections. Electricity powers all the tubewells in the fields and is used in various types of small business.

                      v.        Palampur has two primary schools and one high school. There is a primary health centre run by the government and one private dispensary where the sick are treated.

Q46. What are the different ways of increasing production on the same piece of land? Use examples to explain.

Ans. Multiple Cropping

To grow more than one crop on a piece of land during the year is known as multiple cropping. It is the most common way of increasing production on a given piece of land.

Example: All farmers in Palampur grow atleast two main crops; many are growing potato as the third crop in the past fifteen to twenty years.

Modern Farming Methods

The other way is to use modern farming methods for higher yield. Modern farming methods involve use of tubewells for irrigation, HYV seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, machinery like tractors and threshers etc. to produce maximum output from the same piece of land.

Example: In Palampur, the yield of wheat grown from the traditional varieties was 1300 kg per hectare. With the HYV seeds, the yield went up to 3200 kg per hectare. There was a large increase in the production of wheat.