Agriculture In India: Situation, Challenges And Solution

This century witnessed new resurgent India which is soon going to be fastest growing economy in world by surpassing China. No doubt India's growth in economic parameters is positive, but picture of 800 million - plus population living and working in rural areas is lot less spectacular.
Situation of Agriculture:
Rate of growth in agriculture and allied activities is down from 4% per annum in the 11th plan period to 1.7% per annum in the first three years of 12th five year plan. Over 3,00,000 lakh farmers have committed suicide in the last decade. India is currently reeling under the impact of successive droughts with 302 districts declared drought hit. There is still 55% of cultivated area is rain fed without having any access to irrigation. According to national sample survey(NSS), in 2011-12, 36 million workers have shifted from agriculture to non-agricultural sectors. As a result, share of agriculture in the total workforce has fallen below the 50% mark for the first time after Independence. Economic survey 2014-15 shows employment growth(1.40%) has lagged behind labour force growth(2.23).
The World Bank’s World Development Report 2008 shows that agricultural growth is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty compared to growth originating in non-agricultural sectors. In India, too, 80 per cent of the people officially counted as poor lived in rural India in 2011-12. This means that for making a significant dent in poverty, rural incomes have to grow at a faster rate. The gap between urban and rural consumption levels has increased over the years. Recent studies have shown that despite the spurt in rural incomes between 2005 and 2012 caused by a rise in commodity prices and favorable terms of trade for agriculture, the level of non-farm incomes is at least three times that of farm incomes even today.
Challenges and Solution:
Public investment
In India still 55 per cent of cultivated area still has no access to irrigation, seasonal rainfall increasing the vulnerability of rainfed segment of Indian agriculture. By creating infrastructure like local harvesting of monsoon run-off can be a good drought-mitigating mechanism. Also, Investments under MGNREGA and watershed programmes need to be converged in this overall framework of drought-proofing rainfed agriculture. Since rainfed agriculture produces about 40 per cent of our foodgrain and a major share of pulses, millets and oilseeds, investments are urgently required from the point of view of food security.
Soil is another critical area where investments are needed. Indian soil mostly lack organic matter and further misuse of chemical fertilizers has further eroded soil health. Many methods of soil enrichment, including by recycling organic matter and converting “waste to wealth”, have been practiced in India but on limited scale.
Reduce the use of Fertilizers
There is also a need of reframing of the current fertilizer subsidy regime, which is heavily biased in favour of synthetic chemical fertilizers. Though there is a growing awareness about the harmful effects of chemical pesticides on environment and human beings, the fact still remains that chemical pesticide use has gone up over the years. The pesticides used in India are more harmful than those in many other parts of the world. There is an urgent need to promote alternative ways of pest management, such as non-pesticidal management (NPM) practices to eventually phase out the use of synthetic pesticides and make agriculture chemical-free.
Crop diversification
This is another big challenge. Even with changing consumption patterns, pulses are the main source of protein for the poor. They have a crucial place in the country’s food security architecture. Millets impart greater resilience to the cropping systems against climate risk in traditional millet-growing areas. Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) have been beyond the reach of most of the farmers growing pulses or millets, and there has been no system of public procurement of these crops. The recent experience of States like Madhya Pradesh is useful in organising decentralised procurement of pulses and millets in those rainfed States where they constitute a major share of the cropped area. Such procurement of local foodgrain, feeding into programmes providing supplementary nutrition like the Mid Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, can be effective in reducing pervasive undernutrition among children, adolescent girls and pregnant women in India.
Agricultural research
It plays a crucial role in promoting diversified cropping systems. Currently, the public expenditure on agricultural research is only 0.7 per cent of the agricultural GDP. There is a strong case for raising this by at least three to four times.
While doing so, attention must be paid to include crops like pulses and millets and attempt to develop climate-resilient cropping systems. Scientists and extension workers of the public-funded agricultural extension system have played a huge role in the agricultural transformation of the country. However, this system is virtually defunct in many parts of the country, especially in the rainfed tracts. Concentrated efforts are required to revive the agricultural extension system and build its capacities by both human resource as well as technical know-how. Organisations like the Agricultural Technology Management Agency (ATMA) and Krishi Vigyan Kendras need to be energised to become active agents of change in rural areas.
Employment
There is also the major challenge of employment generation to be addressed. Projecting the current trends of employment growth to the future, estimates show that the number of non-farm jobs to be created has to be at least thrice as much as the current growth rate of 5-6 million jobs per year. A significant number of these jobs will have to be created in the rural non-farm sector. Hence, we need to identify sectors within the rural economy which have high growth and employment generation potential and support them through a carefully worked out policy package. Sectors like agro-processing and value addition to agricultural produce offer huge scope for local employment and for greater control by the local producers over the value chain. Public investment in rural infrastructure is known to leverage substantial private investment and generate significant local employment multipliers. Available evidence shows that even as the overall rate of women’s labour force participation has declined, there has been high labour force participation of women from poorer households, especially in times of increasing agrarian distress. This underscores the need to revive MGNREGA, which has a proven track record of providing relief employment to a large number of rural women.

By: Vishal