Agriculture in India | Part 1 | Farmers of India
Most developed economies go through a period where the population dependent on farming reduces and manufacturing grows, absorbing labour. In India, the manufacturing sector has not been able to create much employment. India entirely skipped this particular stage of economic evolution. India developed the services sector, most notably the IT sector, which by design can only absorb a miniscule segment of the country’s burgeoning population. Though technology contributes as much as 8 percent of the country’s GDP, it employs a mere 3.9 million people.
Consequently, farm employment is expected to remain a mainstay in terms of employment for decades. Indian economy has been derailed by poor policies in recent times and went into recession owing to the harsh lockdown. In this scenario farming has provided a much-needed buffer to those who have had to return to their villages. Preserving the agricultural sector, even as it fails to deliver high incomes, has been an entirely understandable rallying cry across much of India, and especially in its breadbasket in the northwest of the country.
Farmers’ protest is going on in India. The government is unwilling to accept the major demands of the protesting farmers, i.e to withdraw the three recent laws enacted and include assurance of MSP through legislation. The farmers are not accepting the few amendments to the laws that the government has offered. The protest has definitely brought the nation’s focus upon the problem of farmers (good thing). Let us analyze the state of agriculture and the major problems to deduce some solutions.
· At 157.35 million hectares, India holds the second largest agricultural land globally. Only, the United States has more agricultural land than India.
· India is the second largest producer of rice and wheat after China, with China producing about 40 percent more rice and wheat than India. India is also the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world after China, but China’s fruit production is three times India’s production.
· Milk is India’s largest agri-commodity. Its production (about 177 million tonnes in 2017-18) in value terms exceeds that of rice and wheat combined.
· India has tried to address farm distress by announcing higher MSPs for about 23 major commodities in 2018-19, but in the absence of a large scale procurement mechanism by the government, the market prices for most commodities have remained 10-30 per cent below the announced MSPs.
· Edible oils:India imports edible oil and oil seeds in large quantity. Oils are mainly imported from USA and Canada. In 2004-05 oil worth Rs. 10500 crore was imported.
· A report in Mint using 2013 data from the Food and Agricultural Organization points out: “India produces 106.19 million tonnes of rice a year from 44 million hectares of land. That’s a yield rate of 2.4 tonnes per hectare, placing India at 27th place out of 47 countries. China and Brazil have yield rates of 4.7 tonnes per hectare and 3.6 tonnes per hectare, respectively.”
· In case of wheat the productivity is better than that of rice. “With 93.51 million tonnes of wheat from 29.65 million hectares, India’s yield rate of 3.15 tonnes per hectare places it 19th out of 41 countries. Here, we do better than Brazil’s yield rate of 2.73 tonnes per hectare, but lag behind South Africa (3.4 t/ha) and China (4.9 t/ha),
· 86% of farmers own less than 2 hectares of land and sell whatever is left after their own consumption to private traders.
· The top three states as far as monthly farm income goes are Punjab (Rs 23,133), Haryana (Rs 18,496) and Kerala (Rs 16,927).Average income of farmers in India is Rs 6000 per yr.
· 60% of Indian farmers depend upon non-farm income.
Defence career app Defence learning App
Comments
Post a Comment