Richer farmers and agrarian change in Meerut District, Uttar Pradesh, India

The study begins with a review of Green Revolution research in India. A move is charted from a concern with various types of differentiation to an interest in wage-rate trends and opportunities for off-farm diversification. This leads into a discussion of the crucial role of the investment patterns of richer farmers in governing the dynamics of rural industrialisation. Various characterisations of richer farmers are reviewed in this context. The focus then moves to Meerut District, western Uttar Pradesh. A review of the progress of the Green Revolution in this area is followed by a focus on the investment strategies of richer farmers in the district. The particular significance of notions of family is noted and related to social and political changes operating at a number of scales. It is argued, in conclusion, that the next generation of rural development or Green Revolution studies in India will require an attention to both 'old-fashioned' rural development issues centring on labour relations and distributive justice and a more novel set of social, cultural, and micropolitical questions relating to how successful farmers imagine their surplus and how its subsequent utilisation might be contested by less affluent groups.