206

RISE IN THE PRICES OF FARM-PRODUCE

In ascertaining whether there was a rise in the prices of
agricultural produce we have constructed a table based on
prices which were partly obtained from the records kept
at the Bulsar Kacheri, and partly from the office of the
Department of Agriculture at Poona, for no prices are re-
corded in the village itself. The prices thus collected
are expressed in terms of index-numbers. In compil-
ing these index numbers we had to reduce the figures to
a uniform level. In some cases the prices are given as so
many seers per rupee; in others it is so many rupees per
seer or maund. We have reduced them all to so many
rupees per unit of weight in calculating index numbers.
Secondly, we have adopted the year 1905 as a basis since
prices for all articles are not available for years prior to
that, and because it was a normal year. Thirdly,
for articles of food stuffs we have given a weighted index
number. In doing so, the weights assigned to unhusked
rice, wal, kodra and nagli were 13, 7, i, and i respective-
ly, in view of the cultivated area under each in this village.
The following table thus constructed shows the trend of
prices of farm produce during the last 21 years :

Prices of farm produce expressed in terms of index
numbers :

Year
Food grains
Gul
Castorseed

1905
100
100
100

1914
128
133
122

1926
227
' m
277

This makes it obvious that there was a rise in the price
of farm produce during the last twenty-one years.
Has the rise in prices benefited the agriculturists ? This
is the principal question that we shall attempt to answer in
the following few lines. In order to study the effects of this
rise of prices on the economic condition of the agricultural