Resources for Farmers

In India, income derived from agriculture is not taxed. This sounds good, but the chief beneficiaries are the wealthy farmers and landowners, who could afford to pay. The vast majority of the very poor have incomes too small to tax anyway.

Not that this has prevented small farmers throughout history and in every part of the world from paying through the nose: to landlords, to moneylenders, to middlemen, to bankers, to colonial powers and imperial officers. A big farmer like Larry Tubbs can afford to sell his rice months before it is harvested, because only a small part of his capital is at risk. Countless peasants and tenant farmers are forced to sell their harvest season by season before it is cut, because they have no capital and this is the only way to pay their debts and ensure that the moneylender will provide them with the means to sow the next crop.