In 2016, the government announced that it would double farmers' incomes by 2022. That year passed without the target being met. The claim was quietly extended, never formally acknowledged, never formally withdrawn. It hangs over agricultural policy like an unresolved account.

The NSSO's Situation Assessment Survey data, the most credible periodic measure of farm household income, shows that average real income per agricultural household in 2021-22 was approximately ₹10,218 per month — a meaningful improvement from the 2012-13 baseline of ₹6,426, but an improvement driven significantly by non-farm income, remittances, and MGNREGS wages rather than farm productivity or price realisation.

For the majority of the 150 million farming households that grow crops on less than two hectares — the "small and marginal farmers" who constitute 86 per cent of the agricultural community — farm income alone remains insufficient to cover production costs, let alone support a household above the minimum consumption threshold.

What would actually help? An honest answer requires three things: legal guarantees for minimum support prices at levels that cover production costs plus a reasonable return, debt restructuring mechanisms that break the cycle of compound agricultural debt, and non-farm employment creation in rural areas fast enough to absorb the excess labour that cannot profitably be deployed on small farm holdings.