Common Land Resources--The Source of Livelihood of Poor Villagers: A Household Study

Abstract

"Land resource is the source of livelihood of majority of India’s population. But in our country larger section of agricultural dependents are landless. They earns either by working as agricultural labourer or by utilizing or depending on such lands which are common and not owned by individual i.e., Common Land Resources (CLR). Besides landless, small farmers also utilizes it for different purposes. The CLR are being utilized for pasture and grazing, forest wood collection, crop cultivation and other purposes like temporary shelter for animals, manure pits and storage of fodder and agricultural produces. In view of the above philosophy, the present investigation is an attempt to analyse both quantitatively and qualitatively the role of CLR on the livelihood of rural poor of sampled village (Morthal) of Aligarh district. It evident from the intensive field study and data analysis that more than 82 percent of the landless households depends on CLR mainly for pasture and grazing and crop cultivation, followed by small size landholding households (62.12 percent). However, 25 percent of large size landholding households use CLR for pasture and grazing, storage of fodder and agricultural produces, and construction of sheds for animals on CLR for maintaining family expenditure, or it is the basic source of livelihood of larger section of rural people in our country."