What was commercialisation of agriculture ?

• Under the British rule, farmers were forced to shift their cultivation from cultivating for self-consumption to cultivating for the markets.
• There was a shift from cultivating subsidence crops like rice and wheat to commercial crops like Indigo.
• The commercialization of Indian agriculture was done primarily to feed the British industries. Farmers were forced to cultivate Indigo which was used by British textile industries. They were also forced to accept advance payments this exposed them to market uncertainties.
• However commercialization of Indian agriculture benefitted the British traders and manufacturers, who were provided with opportunity to make huge profits by getting commercialized agricultural products (raw materials) at cheap rates.
• Earlier farmers grew crops for self-consumption, but now they needed cash to buy indigo and other commercial crops thus money lenders provided cash advances to the farmers to cultivate the commercial crops. However the inability of the farmers to repay the money put them in debt. Apart from being in debt they also failed to produce that much food which could provide two square meals a day.

Thus the consequence of commercialisation of agriculture under the British colonial rule was perpetual indebtedness of the farmers and stagnation of the agricultural sector.