Agricultural Prices, Technology and Rural Employment in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra

This study examines the impact of agricultural prices and technology on farmer incomes and then assesses its growth linkage implications for rural employment and wages. Based on the irrigated rice economy of Andhra Pradesh and the rainfed jowar economy of Maharashtra, the study concludes that technical change has been the dominant source of increases in farmer incomes; the role of prices has been decidedly secondary. Furthermore, employment linkages are evident, but only with extremely high rates of growth and good resource endowments: this implies that expectations from growth linkage processes on a wide scale are unrealistic.