Accounting for the hidden health costs of labour-intensive farming is essential to ensure agricultural policies and prices truly support the wellbeing and livelihoods of those who feed the nation.

Worldwide agriculture is usually described in terms of land, seeds, and water. But from my experience working with farmers in across India, I have come to realise that a farmer’s health is just as critical an input — and yet it is largely invisible in economic models. Labour-intensive crops such as sugarcane, rice, wheat, mango, cashew, vegetables and cotton etc. bring high returns, but the toll on those who grow them is often ignored.

Take the example of sugar cane, on a single acre, a farmer may spend around 80 full labour days in a year, in addition to seeds, fertiliser, and irrigation. According to the CACP Cost of Cultivation Report (2024–25), the cost comes to about Rs 70,000. But when we factor in what I call Farmer Health Capital depreciation — the cumulative physical and mental strain of repetitive work — the real cost rises by roughly Rs 16,000. This estimate uses the NSSO daily wage of Rs 350 and occupational strain research (Bharati et al., 2019; Ramesh et al., 2021).

Take the second example of cotton.  Managing pests, weeding, and manual harvesting requires sustained effort. From my visits to cotton farms in Vidarbha, I have seen how a single acre can exhaust a smallholder over the season. Applying a health-adjusted cost, cultivation can rise by 15–20 per cent, even if gross income remains unchanged. Traditional accounting simply misses this hidden burden.

Recognising health as part of production changes the way we view agricultural economics. Farmer Health Capital is a stock, which diminishes with intensive work, while health in the production function acts as a flow, directly influencing output.

A fatigued or injured farmer produces less, and this has economic consequences just like soil fertility or irrigation. Output Y can be represented as a function of seed, fertiliser, water, labour, and health-adjusted labour. Y=f (S, F, W, L×H), Where H is the health-adjustment factor (0 < H ≤ 1). (P J Patil, 2026). This shows that a farmer’s physical and mental strain directly affects productivity, making health a measurable economic input and helping calculate the true cost of cultivation more accurately.

The implications for MSP are immediate. Current MSP calculations consider cash costs and family labour, but not health depreciation. Adjusting MSP for sugarcane and cotton could raise prices 15–25 per cent, reflecting the real value of farmers’ labour. It would also encourage mechanisation, crop diversification, and farming practices that reduce physical strain, improving sustainability.

Beyond economics, this approach sheds light on agrarian distress and suicides. Many farmers continue to work under extreme strain, even when income appears adequate. Ignoring health deterioration overlooks “silent distress, which can precede chronic illness or mental health crises (NCRB, 2023; ICSSR, 2021). Tracking Farmer Health Capital could serve as an early warning system for intervention.

Counting the invisible cost of health is not just a theoretical exercise — it is essential for sustainable, humane agriculture. Policies and pricing should reflect the true effort involved in cultivating labour-intensive crops, ensuring that farming is profitable not just on paper, but in the lives of those who feed the nation.