{"id":95732,"date":"2021-03-17T12:41:30","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T07:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=95732"},"modified":"2021-03-17T12:41:30","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T07:11:30","slug":"government-should-initiate-steps-to-make-agriculture-remunerative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/government-should-initiate-steps-to-make-agriculture-remunerative\/","title":{"rendered":"Government should initiate steps to make Agriculture remunerative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong> Government should avoid handing over India\u2019s agriculture to agribusiness companies. Instead, it should take steps to make agriculture remunerative.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Development of Agriculture during the green revolution period<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>During the mid-1960s, the green revolution resulted in <strong>increased productivity<\/strong> in India and, especially, Punjab.<\/li>\n<li>Further, the growth in agriculture was aided by public investment in irrigation and market infrastructure.\u00a0Also, the guaranteed <strong>minimum support price incentivized<\/strong> the cultivation of wheat and rice.<\/li>\n<li>Consequently, the area under paddy cultivation in Punjab jumped from 4.8 percent of the total cropped area in 1960-61 to 39.19 percent in 2018-19. Similarly, the wheat area shares too increased from 27 percent to 45 percent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What are the reasons for India\u2019s deep agrarian crisis?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>First, <\/strong>the adverse consequence of the Green revolution<strong>. <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Monocropping:<\/strong> Though the production of wheat and rice increased, the cultivation of other crops started to decline. For example, Punjab had a total of 21 crops in 1960-61, which fell to nine in 1991.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Long-term economic and ecological effects: <\/strong>Wheat-rice cropping monoculture led to the depletion of groundwater levels. Excessive use of chemical pesticides reduced land productivity. For example, currently, the growth rate of yield has reduced to 2 percent per year due to water scarcity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second, the <\/strong>absence <strong>of land reforms<\/strong> has increased inequalities among farmer communities. For example, According to the <strong>10th agriculture census of 2015-16<\/strong>,\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Small and marginal farmers<\/strong> (&lt; 2 hectares of land): account for 86.2 percent of all farmers in India. But own just 47.3 percent of the crop area.<\/li>\n<li>Whereas, semi-medium and medium land holding farmers (2-10 hectares of land) : account for 13.2 percent of all farmers, but own 43.6 percent of the crop area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Third<\/strong>, the <strong>widening rural-urban divide<\/strong> also contributed to the rural distress.\n<ul>\n<li>For example, according to the <strong>NSO household consumer expenditure survey<\/strong> for 2017-2018,\u00a0Consumer expenditure by rural residents in 2017-18 decreased by 8.8 percent compared to 2012 statistics. <strong>Whereas, <\/strong>urban consumer expenditure for the same period increased by 2 percent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h5><strong>Will the new farm laws address these problems?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The three contentious farm bills seek to deregulate and dismantle the APMC network. However, dismantling APMCs will not address the above-said issues. The Bihar experiment of scrapping APMC markets in 2006 can illustrate it better,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The scrapping of APMC markets in Bihar (2006) did not improve its agricultural performance. According to the study by the <strong>National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER)<\/strong>,<\/li>\n<li>Even after the scrapping of APMC markets, farm growth in the state averaged 2.04 percent, lower than the all-India average of 3.12 percent.<\/li>\n<li>Also, the scrapping of APMC markets has not led to any private investment in new marketplaces according to the study by the <strong>National Institute of Agriculture Marketing <\/strong>(CCSNIAM).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><strong>What needs to be done?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>First, <\/strong>since market accessibility is a major issue, the state should help smallholder farmers to have access to the market.\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>The role of the private sector will be limited as evident from the Bihar example. Hence, Public investment in infrastructure and MSPs needs to increase.<\/li>\n<li>Worryingly, the Public sector investment in agriculture is inadequate. As per the RBI, India has spent only 0.4 percent of the GDP between 2011-12 and 2017-18.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Second<\/strong>, shifting towards agroecological farming that includes crop diversification, will ensure sustainability for Indian agriculture.\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Agroecology<\/strong> emphasizes using locally available resources thereby minimizing external and artificial inputs.<\/li>\n<li>Recently, in 2018, the Andhra Pradesh government announced to bring all 80 lakh hectares of its cultivable land under agroecological farming by 2024.<\/li>\n<li>A study by <strong>Azim Premji University<\/strong> has shown that following sustainable agroecological principles has resulted in increased yields. For example, 79 percent increase in brinjal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/farmers-crisis-protest-laws-7229913\/\">Indian Express<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis: Government should avoid handing over India\u2019s agriculture to agribusiness companies. Instead, it should take steps to make agriculture remunerative. Development of Agriculture during the green revolution period During the mid-1960s, the green revolution resulted in increased productivity in India and, especially, Punjab. Further, the growth in agriculture was aided by public investment in irrigation&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/government-should-initiate-steps-to-make-agriculture-remunerative\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Government should initiate steps to make Agriculture remunerative<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1314],"class_list":["post-95732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-agri_6","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95732\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}