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Linkage between rural
poverty and agricultural productivity across the districts
of Uttar Pradesh in India
Prabha*, Kishor Goswami and Bani Chatterjee
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal 721 302,
India.
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
ptarunk@gmail.com. Tel: +91 9415106274. Fax: +91 3222
282270.
Accepted 5 January, 2010 |
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Improvement in agricultural productivity can reduce rural
poverty in a major way. In India, various studies inferred
that rural poverty is inversely related to the agricultural
productivity and argued that agricultural productivity
growth reduces rural poverty effectively as it generates
income for poor farmers. Indian states are characterized by
high variations in rural poverty levels, particularly, in
Uttar Pradesh which is the most populous state of India.
The economy of the state is
rural-based, predominantly agrarian, with 80% of
population living in villages. The incidence of rural
poverty in the state is very high as compared to most of the
other states of India. It demands for an in-depth analysis
of rural poverty in Uttar Pradesh and the role of
agricultural productivity in reducing rural poverty. Present
study attempts to estimate rural poverty and disparity in it
within the state. The linkage between rural poverty and
agricultural productivity has also been examined.
The study analyses that there exists no significant
differences in the incidence, depth and severity of rural
poverty across the regions, while variations are significant
across the districts. The linkage between agricultural
productivity and rural poverty are found to be significant
in the state. This shows that as agricultural productivity
increases, the incidence, depth and severity of rural
poverty decreases in all the districts. The findings of
regression analysis further provide evidences that the
negative impact of agricultural productivity on the
incidence, depth and severity of rural poverty is
statistically significant across the districts of Uttar
Pradesh.
Key words: Rural poverty, agricultural productivity,
districts, Uttar Pradesh. |
