For most of the sample households land property is their major asset. In addition to wetlands all of them have owned dry lands. On an average a marginal farmer household in the study area possesses 85.34 cents of land of which 74.47 cents are wetlands. Meanwhile an average small farmer household owns 211.54 cents of land out of which 174.48 cents are wetlands. In the case of medium and large farmers the respective figures are estimated ascents and 371.67 cents. Total land area owned by an average large farmer household is found to be 1087.2 cents, which is nearly 13 times greater than that of a marginal farmer’s possession. Again, it is observed that an average large farmer owns 815 cents of paddy lands. Present survey reveals that 60 percent of the farmer households in the study area bear the burden of debt.
Contrary to the popular belief, it is found that the incidence of indebtedness is more severe among large farmer households compared to marginal and small farmer households. While 74 percent of the large farmers are debtors only 46.7 percent of the marginal farmers have prevailing debts. The total existing debt of the 90 sample households at the date of the survey amounted to Rs 4.64 lakhs and their per capita debt is worked out as Rs. 941. It is observed that the average debt of the debtor households in the large farmer category, which is found to be Rs. 15333, is more than three times higher than that of the marginal farmer households. However, this does not imply that the marginal farmers are financially better placed but only shows that the creditworthiness of large farmers are relatively much higher so that they can avail more loans from financial institutions and private individuals. The current debt position of the sample households is shown in table 3.11
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