The Role Of Agriculture In India

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The agriculture sector contributed more than half the output of the Indian economy when the country embarked on its First Five-Year Plan in 1950-51. Over a period of six decades, the share of agriculture has gradually declined to less than 15 percent. Even in the rural economy, the share of the agricultural sector has declined to 38 percent of the total income generated in rural areas (2004-05). Despite its shrinking share in national income and losing its dominance in rural income, the performance of the agricultural sector remains a matter of central concern to policy makers and the public at large (Chand et. al., 2012). As a concomitant of growth, the share of agriculture and allied sector in gross domestic product …show more content…

Slow growth in agricultural productivity means slow improvement in the welfare of those dependent on it, as evident in emerging trends (for example, widening gap between agricultural and non-agricultural labour productivities, excess family labour remaining on farms, declining profitability on small farms). This need not be the case, as the experience of comparator countries with very different factor endowments shows. China, with a much larger share of workforce in agriculture than India, and Brazil with a much lower share, have both made remarkable progress in improving the standard of living of their agricultural population with significantly faster growth in agricultural productivity than India (Gautam, 2016). A singular characteristic of Indian agriculture is the predominance of small and marginal farms (1.16 ha in 2010-11). However, empirical studies indicate that small size of land holdings are not a deterrent to increasing productivity, which is determined by focused research and investments, access to modern inputs, appropriate technology, and innovative marketing systems to aggregate and market the output efficiently and effectively (Economic Survey, 2013-14). The agricultural workers especially small and marginal farmers (less than 2 hectares of land) constituted 84.97 in

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