34 SOCIAL SCIENTIST The opinion survey brings into focus the fact that the recent increase in demand for wheat at the farm level has been due to inflationary pressures felt after the mid-sixties. Small and marginal farmers and people in the low income brackets generally consume more wheat compared to large farmers and people belonging to the high income brackets. Thus what is true in the cross-section analysis is also likely to have some relevance in a time series analysis or an individual income group. The sharp increase in the level of prices, specially those of essential commodities, from the mid-sixties has caused a severe erosion in the purchasing power, particularly of small and marginal farmers and people belonging to the lower income brackets. As a result, despite a continuous increase in the relative price of wheat, as can be seen from Table VIII showing the ratio of issue price of wheat to that of rice,3 people belonging to the low income groups have been forced to substitute wheat for rice to a considerable extent in view of lower absolute price of the former. The farm population particularly those of the small' and marginal categories!, has been reportedly forced to substitute wheat for rice to a considerable extent. It may be relevant to mention here that wheat and rice, though competitive with each other from the point of view of consumption, are not strictly so from the point of view of production. The increased level of consumption of wheat by farmers and the expansion of wheat acreage can be explained in terms of the inflationary upsurge. The farmers, specially those belonging to small and marginal categories who have taken up production of wheat, are consuming more wheat than before in order to release more rice, previously earmarked for home consumption, -for sale in the market in their effort to maintain the level of consumption of other necessaries the prices of which have registered a sharp increase after the mid-sixties. Thus the difference in absolute price between rice and wheat and not the relative price of the latter seems to have played a pivotal role in determining the composition of the food. This explanation may appear to have some incongruity with the results of the usual micro-analysis in which the relative price and not the absolute price of a commodity is considered crucial in determining its level of comsumption. But the present study has shown that in an inflationary situation, the relative price of a commodity loses much of its edge and that it is the absolute price that assumes crucial significance in determinnig the comsumption pattern of people, specially those of the low income group. It is also shown that the recent expansion of wheat area in West Bengal has been