Central to the rich tradition of agrarian studies is the debate on the impact of capitalist transition on peasant farming. Though some aspects of the previous debates gradually faded away, questions related to the stability of peasant farming, their possible disintegration or reproduction, continue to remain unresolved and acquire new meanings in the context of ongoing neoliberal reforms and emerging developmental tendencies. Though its terminology is different, the book under review relates itself to this debate. The authors have chosen the term ‘agrarian structural transformation’ instead of ‘agrarian transition’ and ‘family labour farming’ instead of the broader concept of ‘peasant farming’ or ‘family farming’. Usually, the term ‘peasant’ signifies household farming organized for simple reproduction. However, the book distanced itself from such conceptualization. Here predominance is understood in terms of dependency on family labour in farm management and cultivation. It puts forward the following three hypotheses: (a) Agrarian structural transformation has increased its pace in India in the context of neoliberal changes; (b) it is likely to lead to an increasing predominance of family labour farms; and (c) it has polarized the agrarian structure with ‘factories in the fields’ and ‘armies of agricultural labourers’. The first hypothesis relates to macrolevel data, while the last two are put to test based on panel data from the Agricultural and Rural Industries Survey–Rural Employment and Development Survey (ARIS‐REDS) for the years 1969–1971, 1982, 1999 and 2006 and covering 250 villages in 99 districts in 12 states. To test the last two hypotheses, the authors develop statistical models aimed at analysing the following processes: (a) mobility out of and into the farm sector, (b) mobility in size classes and (c) changes in relative income. However, as the discussion of the book in the latter part of this review will show, the analysis of the available data fails to support these two hypotheses.

Broadly, the book argues that the agrarian structural transformation in India which picked up momentum due to economic liberalization led to greater interaction between the farm and non‐farm economy and increased pluriactivity. This, in turn, reinforced the persistence of smallholder‐led farm structure and increased the propensity of large landowners' downward mobility. It develops this argument through its eight chapters in addition to a brief introduction and four appendices which I describe briefly before moving on to a critical discussion of its most prominent themes, namely, class categories and trends in Indian agriculture, migration and pluriactivity, and subaltern urbanization.

The first four chapters provide the conceptual framework for the book, the broad macrolevel background and an explanation of the statistical and econometric modelling used. In the first chapter, the authors using Max Weber's methodology developed the ideal types of key concepts: family farms, capitalist farms and agricultural labourers (these will be critically examined in a later section). It also presents a brief trajectory of transformation of rural economies and family farms across the globe to put in perspective the question of family labour farming in India. It emphasizes the need to consider pluriactivity while examining the empirical validity of the thesis promoted by neo‐Leninists and neoclassical economists that peasant farming is declining under capitalist farming.

Chapter 2 discusses agrarian structural transformation at the global level while looking at India in a comparative perspective. The term agrarian structural transformation is defined taking into account two indicators: the share of GDP originating in the agricultural sector and the share of the total labour employed in the sector. Analysis of linkage between urbanization and organization of agricultural production forms the content of Chapter 3. The features of urban policy, the emerging form of urbanization in smaller towns referred as ‘grassroots level urbanisation’ and the forms of agricultural production are discussed here to provide a ‘microscopic insight to the conceptual elements that form the basis of macro‐level analysis’ (p. 42).

The next three chapters carry out empirical analysis. Chapter 5 begins with macrostatistics to study the process of structural agrarian transformation and then proceeds to the ARIS‐REDS and HDPI‐IHDS (Human Development Profile of India–India Human Development Survey) longitudinal survey data to analyse drivers of exit from the farm sector and the issue of persistence of family labour farms in the context of growing pluriactivity and non‐agrarian livelihoods at the microlevel. Chapter 6 studies the distribution of land and mobility between size classes and notes that irrigation and ecotype affect the volatility in land distribution. An estimate of relative changes in income of various categories of rural/agrarian population over the period of time is made in Chapter 7 to assess the developmental impact of structural transformation, especially with regard to equity, welfare and consequent effect on farmers dependent on the use of hired labour. Through these chapters, the authors argue that a higher share of non‐farm income is crucial to the upward mobility of households, but they use this income to improve their foothold in farming and not necessarily as a stepping stone to exiting from the sector. This enabled family farms, smallholders and even landless labourers to increase their income in the post‐reform period (p. 117). Meanwhile, large landowners, who gained strength through the later phases of the Green Revolution, experienced a loss of income in the post‐reform period due to rising wages of hired labour in the context of increased competition between farm sector and the service or industrial sectors for labour (p. 120).

The book unveils a new trend in Indian agrarian change and has useful policy insights. Its conceptual frame and methodological approach is fresh and different from other approaches (e.g. Bernstein, 2010) which are predominantly economistic and not entirely appropriate to the specificity of fast developing economies like India. Drawing insights from sociology and geography, combining them with economic analysis and following a Weberian methodology, the book provides a new lens to view changes in the agrarian sector when the economy as a whole experiences transformation. In a rare occurrence, it brings India to the centre stage of the global debate on the impact of agrarian structural transformation on different sections of the agrarian–rural population under neoliberalism.

However, despite building a complex mosaic of arguments, the analysis presented is deductive and not adequately supported by data. It appears as if the authors had preconceived arguments and the data, methods and conceptual framework were selected accordingly. The book indicates authors' aversion to not only the dominant literature but also data sets that are likely to show different trends not consistent with the authors' neo‐Chayanovian line of arguments. The recent notable works of scholars like Utsa Patnaik and Sam Mayo, Jan Breman, Dipankar Gupta and Jens Lerche relating to the impact of ongoing agrarian changes have been overlooked. The wide range of data furnished by NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) on landholding, tenancy, debt and investment, income and expenditure as well as migration trends have also not been taken into account. In doing so, the authors have distanced themselves from the empirical reality and come closer to abstract‐level generalizations. Heavy reliance on statistical and econometric models obscured the complex socio‐economic and historical specificities of Indian states and their differential levels of market integration.

A major issue in the analysis relates to categories used, the conceptual framework and the data employed to buttress these claims. India's nearly seven million large and medium holders (Agriculture Census Division, 2011) hardly possess the characteristics of the Weberian ‘ideal type’ of capitalist firms (where a production unit is worked by hired labourers, managed by professional managers and owned by corporations) developed in the book. Similarly, the ideal type of agricultural labourers (agricultural workers who sell their labour power in a free and non‐discriminated market) excludes a large section of India's agricultural workers, who constitute 33% of the country's rural main workers as per 2011 Census Report. Likewise, a vast section of India's small and marginal farms do not qualify as the ideal family farms (farms worked, managed or owned by families). The authors suggest a new category of ‘combination of farms’, a small segment that is argued to cut across family farms and agricultural workers. In other words, narrow definitions are developed, even though the data available do not fit them. At one point, the authors themselves acknowledge, ‘since our databases do not contain detailed data inputs of family and hired labour on the firms studied, we are forced to rely on more approximate indicators’ (pp. 69, 124). This allows the authors to make neo‐Chayanovian arguments that are far from the empirical reality revealed by more appropriate data sets and obscure the historical specificities of different Indian states.

The argument that the smallholder–agricultural labourers experienced significant increase in their income since 1990s as they became pluriactive and relied on family labour for agricultural production while the income of large landowners proportionately declined due to their high dependence on hired labour appears to be fallacious. The analysis in the book overlooked the process of rising mechanization in agriculture, particularly among the large landowners. For example, there has been phenomenal growth of tractors and pumpsets in recent years (Mohanty & Lenka, 2016, p. 173). In addition, a cursory look at the data furnished by the Agricultural Census or NSSO on cropping pattern tells us that while the large landowners are switching over to high‐value capital‐intensive crops, small and marginal farmers continue to struggle with low‐value labour‐intensive food crops. Moreover, the income and expenditure data furnished by NSSO indicate that perpetual economic deficit among the small farmers and landless labourers is quite common. The National Commission on Farmers (2004) also indicated a decline of farm income amongst small farmers and reported that a high proportion of 40% intended to quit farming. Several microlevel studies (Mohanty, 2019; Sidhu, 2011) reported across states also illustrate deteriorating economic conditions and high incidences of indebtedness and consequent suicides among the small farmers. It is thus surprising that the authors have avoided any discussion of the ongoing farm crisis and its impact on the small farmers. The widespread discontent, mobilization and agitations among the farmers are in fact downplayed in this book. What is missing in the book is precisely a fair treatment of the adverse impact of neoliberal conditions on the smallholders and agricultural labourers.

Furthermore, a convenient analytical frame has been adopted that avoids complex conceptual issues. For example, the authors adopted the definition of neoliberalism as given in Wikipedia (p. 37), refrained from going deeply in to the ‘normative developmental debate’ associated with agrarian structural transformation and focused only on income as an indicator of development ignoring its impacts on health, education, democratic participation etc. (p. 39).

The book's analysis of pluriactivity by rural households and migration to urban areas also needs a critical assessment. Firstly, based on this analysis, they argue that India has reached the ‘Lewis Turning Point’ leading to a rising competition for labour between the farm sector on the one hand and the services and industrial sector on the other (pp. 66, 120). However, this is an oversimplified observation. The growing size of rural labour force has not accelerated the rural–urban migration in India as in the stylized Lewisian scenario of economic development. Rural to urban migration does not take place as it happened in the developed countries of the West. As rural labourers are drawn largely from the socially disadvantaged sections especially Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, they lack the required skill and education to be eligible for employment at a higher wage in the big industrial cities or in the newly emerging urban centres (e.g. census towns). The existing migration studies in India (Breman, 2007; De Haan, 2011; Deshingkar, 2006; Mohanty, 2019) show that labour mobility in the rural areas largely takes place within the agricultural sector, from backward to developed pockets, and within the different sectors of rural economy and a significant part of them is seasonal in nature. Besides, one cannot ignore the gendered implications of the current trend of rising feminization of rural labour force and farm sector (the number of female agricultural labourers increased from 49.5 million in 2001 to 61.6 million in 2011, as per the census estimates) while discussing mobility of rural labour. Increasing female labour participation not only contributes to expansion of labour force but also makes the labour cheaper given the gender discrimination in wages prevalent in rural India and the inability of these female labourers to migrate to urban centres to take up non‐farm activities (both due to the lack of required skill and knowledge and patriarchal norms). This situation can be reasonably expected to be beneficial to the large landholders while affecting adversely smallholder and agricultural labour households.

Secondly, the book argues that growing non‐farm activities of smallholder and labouring households have strengthened their economic position and resilience. This analysis is, however, based on econometric modelling with data that are only up to 2004/2005 and does not include information on household expenditure, agricultural inputs, indebtedness and patterns of migration. At the same time, various studies indicate that the new urban agglomerations (census towns) have provided an opportunity to the resourceful large landholders to switch over to trade, business and other non‐agricultural economic activity in view of declining profitability in agriculture (Mohanty, 2005; Rutten, 1995). Moreover, these urban clusters are the new centres of corporate trade and business for agricultural inputs and appliances. With the large‐scale supply of a wide variety of vegetables, fruits as well as processed and packed food materials to these urban areas by corporates at relatively cheaper prices, there is hardly any demand for local or village‐based produce. The observation that recent proliferation of economic activities in these census towns had become a hub for wholesale and retail transactions in fresh vegetables and fruits and brought together producers from the nearby villages is far from the truth. Instances of small‐scale producers selling their vegetables, fruits and other produce to the middlemen and traders at a lower price abound (Mohanty & Lenka, 2019; Vasavi, 1999). As observed by Dipankar Gupta (2009), the city is reaching the village instead of village reaching the city. These processes, unaccounted by the authors, weaken their claim that villages with higher level of integration with non‐agrarian economy witnessed rapid improvement of income of smallholders and labourers.

Despite these shortcomings, the book raises important insights for further empirical research. It is indeed an addition to the existing corpus of literature on agrarian change and warrants extensive reading.

关于农业研究的丰富传统的核心是关于资本主义转轨对农民耕种的影响的辩论。尽管先前辩论的某些方面逐渐消失，但与农民农业的稳定性，其可能的瓦解或再生产有关的问题仍未得到解决，在正在进行的新自由主义改革和新兴发展趋势的背景下具有新的意义。尽管其术语有所不同，但本书仍与这场辩论有关。作者选择了“农业结构转型”而不是“农业转型”和“家庭劳动农业”，而不是更广泛的“农民农业”或“家庭农业”概念。通常，“农民”一词是指为简单繁殖而组织的家庭农业。然而，这本书与这种概念化相距甚远。在这里，主要的理解是对农场管理和耕种中对家庭劳动的依赖。它提出了以下三个假设：（a）在新自由主义变革的背景下，印度的农业结构转型已经加快了步伐；（b）这可能会导致家庭劳动力农场的主导地位增加；（c）它以“田间工厂”和“农业劳动者大军”使农业结构两极化。第一个假设与宏观数据有关，而后两个假设则根据1969-1971年，1982年，1999年和2006年农业和农村产业调查-农村就业与发展调查（ARIS-REDS）的面板数据进行检验。并覆盖了12个州的99个地区的250个村庄。为了检验最后两个假设，作者开发了旨在分析以下过程的统计模型：（a）出入农业部门的流动性；（b）规模等级的流动性；（c）相对收入的变化。但是，正如本书后半部分对本书的讨论所表明的那样，对可用数据的分析未能支持这两个假设。

从广义上讲，该书认为，由于经济自由化，印度的农业结构转型获得了动力，导致了农业与非农业经济之间的更大互动，并增加了多产。反过来，这增强了小农主导的农场结构的持久性，并增加了大地主向下移动的倾向。除了简短的介绍和四个附录外，它还通过八章发展了这一论点。在继续对其最突出的主题进行批判性讨论之前，我将简要介绍四个附录，这些主题分别是印度农业的阶级类别和趋势，移民与多才多艺以及次生事物。城市化。

前四章为本书提供了概念框架，广泛的宏观背景以及对所使用的统计和计量经济学建模的说明。在第一章中，作者使用Max Weber的方法开发了理想的关键概念类型：家庭农场，资本主义农场和农业劳动者（这些将在后面的部分中进行严格审查）。它还简要介绍了全球农村经济和家庭农场的转型轨迹，以透视印度的家庭劳动农业问题。它强调需要在审查新列宁主义者和新古典经济学家提出的关于农民耕种在资本主义耕种下正在下降的论点的经验有效性的同时，考虑多能性。

第2章从比较的角度探讨印度，同时讨论了全球范围内的农业结构转型。定义农业结构转型一词时要考虑两个指标：农业部门的GDP份额和该部门雇用的总劳动力的份额。分析城市化与农业生产组织之间的联系构成了第3章的内容。在这里讨论了城市政策的特征，小城镇中新兴的城市化形式（称为“草根级城市化”）和农业生产形式，以提供一个“对构成宏观分析基础的概念元素的微观洞察”（第42页）。

接下来的三章进行了实证分析。第5章从宏观统计学开始，研究结构性农业转变的过程，然后进行ARIS‐REDS和HDPI‐IHDS（印度人类发展概况－印度人类发展调查）纵向调查数据，以分析从农业部门退出的动因和在多层面和非农业生计日益增长的背景下，家庭劳动力农场的持续性问题。第6章研究了规模等级之间的土地分配和流动性，并指出灌溉和生态类型影响土地分配的动荡性。第7章估算了一段时间内各种类型的农村/农业人口收入的相对变化，以评估结构转型的发展影响，特别是在公平，福利以及对依赖雇用劳力的农民的影响方面。通过这些章节，作者认为非农收入的较高份额对于家庭的向上流动至关重要，但是他们利用这一收入来提高其在农业中的立足点，而不一定是退出该行业的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。农民的福利和对农民的影响，这依赖于雇用劳力的使用。通过这些章节，作者认为非农收入的较高份额对于家庭的向上流动至关重要，但是他们利用这一收入来提高其在农业中的立足点，而不一定是退出该行业的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。农民的福利和对农民的影响，这依赖于雇用劳力的使用。通过这些章节，作者认为非农收入的较高份额对于家庭的向上流动至关重要，但是他们利用这一收入来提高其在农业中的立足点，而不一定是退出该行业的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。作者认为，非农收入的较高份额对于家庭的向上流动至关重要，但他们利用这些收入来提高其在农业中的立足点，而不一定是退出该部门的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。作者认为，非农收入的较高份额对于家庭的向上流动至关重要，但他们利用这些收入来提高其在农业中的立足点，而不一定是退出该部门的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而雇用的工人的工资上涨，因此在改革后时期遭受了收入损失。 （第120页）。但是他们用这笔收入来提高自己在农业上的立足点，而不一定是退出该行业的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。但是他们用这笔收入来提高自己在农业上的立足点，而不一定是退出该行业的垫脚石。这使改革后的家庭农场，小农户甚至无地劳动者能够增加收入（第117页）。同时，在绿色革命后期阶段获得实力的大型土地所有者，由于农业部门与服务业或工业部门之间竞争加剧而导致的雇佣劳动工资上涨，在改革后时期出现了收入损失。 （第120页）。

该书揭示了印度农业变革的新趋势，并提供了有用的政策见解。它的概念框架和方法论方法是新鲜的，与其他方法（例如Bernstein，  2010年）不同，后者主要是经济学的方法，并不完全适合像印度这样的快速发展经济体的特殊性。本书从社会学和地理学中汲取了见识，将其与经济分析相结合，并遵循韦伯的方法，提供了一个全新的视角，可以观察整个经济转型过程中农业部门的变化。在极少发生的情况下，它使印度成为新自由主义下农业结构转变对不同地区农业-农村人口影响的全球辩论的中心。

然而，尽管建立了一个复杂的论点，但所提供的分析是演绎性的，并没有得到数据的充分支持。似乎作者具有先入为主的论据，并据此选择了数据，方法和概念框架。这本书指出作者不仅对主流文学的厌恶，而且对数据集的厌恶也可能显示出不同的趋势，这些趋势与作者的新Chayanovian观点不符。诸如Utsa Patnaik和Sam Mayo，Jan Breman，Dipankar Gupta和Jens Lerche之类的学者与正在进行的农业变革的影响有关的近期著名著作被忽略了。NSSO（国家样本调查组织）提供的有关土地所有权，租赁，债务和投资的各种数据，收入和支出以及移民趋势也没有考虑在内。在这样做的过程中，作者们远离了经验的现实，并且更加接近抽象层次的概括。对统计和计量经济模型的高度依赖掩盖了印度各邦复杂的社会经济和历史特征以及市场整合的不同水平。

分析中的一个主要问题与所使用的类别，概念框架和用于支持这些主张的数据有关。印度将近700万大中型农业生产国（农业普查司，  2011年））几乎不具备本书中发展出来的韦伯式“理想类型”的资本主义公司（生产单位由雇用的劳动者工作，由职业经理人管理，由公司所有）的特征。同样，理想的农业劳动者类型（在自由和无歧视的市场上出售劳动力的农业劳动者）不包括印度农业劳动者的很大一部分，根据2011年人口普查报告，印度农业劳动者占该国农村主要劳动者的33％。同样，印度大部分的小型和边缘农场也不符合理想的家庭农场（家庭经营，管理或拥有的农场）的资格。作者提出了一种新的“农场组合”类别，认为这是一小部分，涉及家庭农场和农业工人。换一种说法，即使可用的数据不适合它们，也会开发出狭窄的定义。有一点，作者自己承认，“由于我们的数据库不包含所研究公司的家庭和雇用劳动力的详细数据输入，因此我们被迫依赖更近似的指标”（第69、124页）。这使作者能够提出新的Chayanovian论证，这些论证与更合适的数据集所揭示的经验现实相去甚远，并且掩盖了印度不同邦的历史特征。

自1990年代以来，小农农业工人的收入显着增加，原因是他们变得多才多艺并依靠家庭劳动进行农业生产，而大地主的收入则由于对雇佣劳动的高度依赖而成比例地下降，这似乎是错误的。该书中的分析忽略了农业机械化进程的提高，特别是在大型土地所有者中。例如，近年来，拖拉机和泵组出现了惊人的增长（Mohanty＆Lenka，  2016，第 173）。此外，粗略看一下农业普查或NSSO提供的有关种植模式的数据，这表明，尽管大型土地所有者正在转向高价值的资本密集型作物，但小而边缘的农民仍在为低价值的劳动力而苦苦挣扎。密集的粮食作物。此外，国家统计局提供的收支数据表明，小农和无地劳动者的永久性经济赤字相当普遍。全国农民委员会（2004）也指出小农的农业收入下降，并报告说有40％的高比例打算退出农业。几项微观研究（Mohanty，  2019 ; Sidhu，  2011）各州的报道还表明，小农户的经济状况日益恶化，负债和自杀率很高。因此，令人惊讶的是，作者没有对正在进行的农业危机及其对小农的影响进行任何讨论。实际上，这本书淡化了农民之间普遍的不满，动员和鼓动。该书所缺少的恰恰是对新自由主义条件对小农和农业劳动者的不利影响的公平对待。

此外，采用了方便的分析框架，避免了复杂的概念问题。例如，作者采用了维基百科（第37页）中对新自由主义的定义，避免深入探讨与农业结构转型有关的“规范性发展辩论”，只关注收入作为发展指标，而忽略了其影响关于健康，教育，民主参与等（第39页）。

该书对农村家庭多才多艺和向城市地区迁移的分析也需要进行严格的评估。首先，他们基于这一分析认为，印度已经达到了“刘易斯转折点”，导致一方面农业部门与服务业和工业部门之间的劳动力竞争加剧（第66、120页） 。但是，这是一个过于简单的观察。农村劳动力规模的扩大并没有像程式化的刘易斯式经济发展方案那样，加速了印度的农村向城市的迁移。从农村到城市的迁移并没有像西方发达国家那样发生。由于农村劳动力主要来自社会弱势群体，特别是贱民种姓和贱民部落，他们缺乏在大型工业城市或新兴的城市中心（例如人口普查镇）以较高工资获得就业所需的技能和教育。印度现有的移民研究（不来梅， 2007 ; 德哈恩（De Haan），  2011年；Deshingkar，  2006；莫汉蒂（Mohanty），  2019）表明，农村地区的劳动力流动主要发生在农业部门内部，从落后地区到发达地区，以及农村经济的不同部门内部，其中很大一部分是季节性的。此外，在讨论流动性时，不能忽视当前农村劳动力和农业部门女性化趋势上升的性别影响（根据人口普查估计，女性农业劳动力的人数从2001年的4950万增加到2011年的6160万）。农村劳动力。考虑到印度农村地区普遍存在的工资性别歧视，以及这些女性劳动力无法迁移到城市中心从事非农业活动，女性劳动力参与度的增加不仅有助于劳动力的增加，而且使劳动力成本降低。缺乏必要的技能和知识以及父权制规范）。可以合理地预计这种情况对大土地所有者有利，同时对小农和农业劳动力家庭造成不利影响。

其次，该书认为，小农户和有劳动家庭的非农活动的增长增强了他们的经济地位和抵御力。但是，该分析是基于计量经济学模型进行的，其数据仅截至2004/2005年，并且不包括有关家庭支出，农业投入，债务和移民方式的信息。同时，各种研究表明，由于农业的盈利能力下降，新的城市群（人口普查镇）为机智丰富的大土地所有者提供了转向贸易，商业和其他非农业经济活动的机会（Mohanty，  2005年；鲁滕（Rutten），  1995年）。而且，这些城市群是农业投入品和电器的新的公司贸易和商业中心。由于企业以相对便宜的价格向这些城市大量供应各种蔬菜，水果以及经过加工和包装的食品原料，因此几乎没有对本地或乡村产品的需求。这些人口普查镇最近的经济活动激增已经成为新鲜蔬菜和水果的批发和零售交易的枢纽，并将附近村庄的生产者聚集在一起的观察结果并非事实。小规模生产者以较低的价格向中间商和贸易商出售蔬菜，水果和其他产品的例子不胜枚举（Mohanty＆Lenka，  2019 ; Vasavi，  1999）。根据Dipankar Gupta（2009）的观察，城市正在到达村庄，而不是村庄到达城市。作者未解释的这些过程削弱了他们的论点，即与非农业经济融合程度更高的村庄见证了小农和劳动者收入的迅速提高。

尽管存在这些缺点，该书还是为进一步的实证研究提供了重要的见识。确实，这是对有关农业变化的现有文献集的补充，值得广泛阅读。