ORISSA ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION BHUBANESWAR

dian agriculture today is under a large crisis. An farmer household's returns from cultivation would he one thousand rupees per month. The incomes are uate and the farmer is not in a position to address the de of risks: weather, credit, market and technology others. Social responsibility of education, healthcare arriage instead of being normal activities add to the. All these would even put the semi-medium farmer under of transient poverty. The state of the vast majority of nd marginal farmers and agricultural labourers is worse extreme form of response to this crisis is the increasing nee of farmers ' suicides. In such situations, employment mmes can provide some succour to the agricultural rs and also perhaps to the marginal and small farmers. ast that one can expect from such programmes is rent-"been prepared as a keynote paper on the theme "Post-reform Crisis in [culture " for presentation at the 39th Annual Conference of the Oriss