As per surveys conducted by the Centre, farmers in Odisha continue to be the poorest in the country. Even if a separate budget for agriculture from 2012-13 and around ₹9,000 crore cash assistance to millions of farmers under the Kalia scheme since January 2019, the farmers in the state continued to be the poorest.
According to the reports, the All-India Debt & Investment Survey, 2019, conducted between January and December 2019 by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), showed that the average value of assets (AVA) per farmer household in the state was ₹6.21 lakh. According to the last such NSSO survey in 2013, the AVA per farmer household in Odisha was ₹5.71 lakh.
As per the latest NSSO survey, the AVA in rural Odisha was ₹5.32 lakh while in urban Odisha it was 13.41 lakh. It showed the rural farmer households in Odisha were the poorest in the country. They were poorer than those in rural Assam with an AVA of nearly ₹7 lakh. In Jharkhand, the AVA in rural households was ₹8.6 lakh. In Chhattisgarh, it was ₹8.9 lakh and ₹7.89 lakh in West Bengal.
The Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India, 2019, conducted by the National Statistical Office showed that the average monthly income of an Odisha farmer was ₹5,112. The income was second-lowest after that of farmers in Jharkhand ( ₹4,895).
In 2021-22, Odisha allocated a ₹17,469 crore budget for agriculture. The allocation was almost double of ₹5,627 crores allocated in 2012-13.
