On the operation of the land market in backward agriculture: Evidence from a village in Orissa, Eastern India

Based on original field data this article analyses the implications of different contracts found in the land market in the study village. A variety of tenurial contracts including land mortgage, with different terms and conditions, have been found. However, landless labourers were discriminated against by lessors because of their lack of working capital and inadequate cash to lease in land on a cash payment basis. Land mortgage is resorted to by poor peasant as a strategy to mobilise funds for urgent purposes and thereby to stop land alienation. The behaviour of land sale and purchase transactions showed the sluggish nature of the land market, but distress sale is an important phenomenon found in the village. Both intra‐class and inter‐class land transfer were found and the process of differentiation was complex. Rich farmers have tried to consolidate and enlarge their land holdings through selling of low quality and unfavourably located plots and buying better quality and favourably located plots. The process of consolidation by the rich is accompanied by a proliferation of sub‐livelihood plots by poor farmers.