The Upper Backward Caste is a term used to describe the middle castes in Bihar, whose social and ritual status was not very low and which has traditionally been involved in the agricultural and animal husbandry related activities in the past. They have also been involved in low scale trade to some extent. The Koeri, Kurmi, Yadav and Bania are categorised as the upper-backwards amongst the Other Backward Class group; while the various other caste groups which constitutes the OBC, a group comprising 51% of the population of state of Bihar, has been classified as lower backwards. The upper-backwards also called upper OBC represents approximately 20.3% of the population of Bihar. These agricultural caste were the biggest beneficiaries of the land reform drive which was undertaken in the 1950s in the state and they strengthened their economic position by gaining a significant portion of excess land under the ceiling laws, which prohibited the ownership of land above a certain ceiling.
An "ethnographic" photograph from 1916 showing Kurmi farmers, both men and women, sowing a field