The growth of the rural non-farm sector is a structural transformation of the Indian economy,but
it is a stunted one. It generates few jobs at high wages with job security and benefits. It is the
failure of the urban economy to create enough jobs, especially in labor-intensive manufacturingthat prevents a more favorable structural transformation of the classic kind. Nevertheless, non-farm sector growth has allowed for accelerated rural income growth, contributed to rural wage
growth, and prevented the rural economy from falling dramatically behind the urban economy.
The bottling up of labor in rural areas,however, means that farm sizes will continue to decline,
agriculture will continue its trend to feminization, and part-time farming will become the
dominant farm model. Continued rapid rural income growth depends on continued urban
spillovers from accelerated economic growth, and a significant acceleration of agricultural
growth based on more rapid productivity and irrigation growth.Such an acceleration is also
needed to satisfy the increasing growth in food demand that follows rapid economic growth and fast growth of per capita incomes