Agriculture in India

Agricultural is a major sector in which nearly half of Indians are engaged and contributing to the tune of 17-20 percent to the GDP. A large number of population and small GDP share made it unsustainable for the farmers and the landless laborers to access a good quality of life since there is a continuous inflationary situation in the economy and also the landholdings by the marginal and small landowners are continuously decreasing due to rising population. Many are thus under-employed. Almost 86% of farmers have less than 2 hectares of land holdings while only half of it cultivable. This is one big reason that they are not able to properly inculcate the benefit of technology; cost is unmanageable to buy machines in the fields. Climate change is another source of distress for India. Due to the increased heat wave in summers, many laborers do not want to burn in the fields. There is increasing desertification of lands which currently stand at 30% of the total cover of India. However, technologically advanced country like Israel is doing well. They have brought revolution in agriculture with the help of technology. Last year India also signed a MoU to get help in improving agriculture situation in India. Indeed India is also producing different types of crops and is a major export player yet there is rising farm distress and unabated suicides.

The current distress was also due to the partial demonetization done 2 years back which withdrew the lasting cash from the market. Government is giving lots of subsidies to the farmers. There is the APMC Act which has mandated the regulation of mandis. Last year the Minimum Support Price increased 50% by which the farmers will be paid 1.5 times the production and labor cost incurred. The government has defined MSPs for 22 crops & it is worth to note that only 6% of the farmers are actually harnessing the benefit of it; the rest is in the air. Currently, there is also no provision for the transportation costs of the farm produce from fields to the markets. This usually adds to their overall costs. The unabated unscientific use of fertilizers & pesticides in distort proportion is hampering the soil health & polluting the underground water.

There is a need that more cooperatives are formed so that cost to yield ratio can be increased. The use of organic farming should be promoted. Farming in Sikkim is 100% organic. Nowadays, People are more concerned with respect to the products they bring to their home. There is a rising demand for organic produce due to increasing health awareness and preventing the entering of fertilizer in the food chain. Soil health scheme can play a changing role here.

Our 35% yield is wasted because there is an acute lack of post-harvest infrastructure (e.g. cold storages) in the country. At times farmers themselves abstain from selling the produce because they are not getting the right value for their crop. This happens because of the incongruences and presence of no central regulating authority. Like in December 2018 the farmers in Maharashtra were protesting because the onion prices were very low of the tune of single digit per kilogram. This is because of the high output which flooded the market. At times, the farmers could not do the right cost management and end up in losses after selling the produce. Food processing industry has a revolutionary tendency for both the MSMEs and the farmers as it could establish a better and assured price for the produce. More private enterprises should be encouraged to enter in this field as also the penetration to this sector is abysmally low. This will also help with our exports and increasing the life of the food.

Not to forget that we are a hunger country which is mismanagement induced. We are a surplus food production country.