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Consider workers in agriculture. No doubt, some increase in their income is feasible through marketing reforms that increase their share in the price paid by the final consumer. But given the low output per worker in the first place, the scope for such increase is extremely limited. Even transferring the entire value of agricultural output to workers would not make them prosperous.
Nor can increases in agricultural output through better technology, improved irrigation and increased investment go very far. With limited scope for the expansion of demand, output increases would translate into correspondingly lower prices and no increases in incomes. Farmers could export some of the output but this too has limits, as importing nations would resist price reductions in their markets. Given our agricultural subsidies, these nations would have a good case for countervailing duties on imports from us under World Trade Organization rules. Diversification into horticulture and fisheries can help on the margin but their capacity to absorb workers is extremely limited.
Even addressing farmer distress meaningfully requires a reduction in agricultural workforce. When drought, frost or floods happen, stories of farmer distress become ubiquitous on front pages of newspapers in the United States as well. But with only 2% of the workforce in agriculture, the remaining 98% workers are in a good position to substantively address this distress. Magnitude of the problem is much larger and revenue resources much smaller in India.
All roads to increasing incomes in agriculture significantly and addressing farmer distress substantively go through the movement of a substantial part of agricultural workforce into industry and services. Such movement will immediately increase land and hence output per worker in agriculture. Marketing reforms would then go a lot farther in increasing per farmer income.