As India's Green Revolution fades, small farmers look elsewhere for livelihood

Despite providing a living to two-thirds of India's population, agriculture is no longer the top priority for the country's policy- makers. Economic reforms since the early 1990s have paid progressively less heed to the interests of the mass of small-scale farmers. Rural industries have become more important, enabling poorer rural people to survive in more versatile ways. Even so, a recent study published by Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford shows that rural elites, rather than the poor, have gained the lion's share of benefits from agricultural intensification and rural industrialisation alike.