Agriculture sector in India: Historical perspective

 

INDIA Has been one of the pioneer countries in the area of development planning. It has gone through the five-decade of planning and has almost completed the first nine five-year plans and a few annual plans in between and the tenth plan is on the anvil. The experience of development planning in India can best be judged initially in terms of outlays and targets and then in terms of the resulting growth-wise performance, and finally in terms of the overtime changes that have taken place in certain crucial economic and social indicators that ultimately effect the quality of life of majority of the people. The final performance of the economy is, therefore, linked both with economic growth and development.

In order to assess the country's performance and progress towards economic development, we must supplement, if not supplant, the growth rate of GNP by other more microeconomic measures. It is not enough to measure progress merely in terms of GNP, it is imperative to look at the structural changes too by assessing the distributional effects of economic growth in the economy on the basis of behaviour pattern, as shown by certain crucial economic and social indicators that effect a larger section of the society and through which the benefits of growth are supposed to get distributed amongst the majority of the people. There are many such indicators, and there are a few specific bases (like the aspirations of the people) to underline such indicators, but the following indicators seem to be more important:

• Agricultural Production
• food grain production
• Industrial Production
• Electricity Generation
• Wholesale Prices
• Consumer Prices
• Imports
• Exports
• Per Capital Availability of certain important articles of consumption
• Population: Birth Rate, Death Rate, life Expectancy at Birth
• Education: Literacy rate
• Health and family Welfare

Agricultural production

Agricultural production includes both food grains (essentially, rice and wheat) and non-food grains (essentially, oilseeds, and sugarcane), the former contributing approximately two-thirds of the total agricultural production. On the basis of the time series data, as computed from Economic Surveys of the Economic Division of the Ministry of Finance for the years 1987-88 and 1997-98, it is seen that agricultural production shows an upward trend through out both in terms of decades and individual years. As compared to 1950-51, the rise has been 221 per cent by the end of the fourth decade (1990-91), and about 280 per cent by the year 1996-97. However, the percentage changes over the previous periods vary. The highest percentage of 48.9 occurred by the end of the first decade and then it fell down to 24.9 by the end of the second decade and further fell down to 18.9 by the end of the third decade but by the end of the fourth decade it improved and touched a high of 45.3.

In fact, the years 1982-83, 1984-85, and 1986-87 were the worst years (due to poor monsoons and the resulting drought conditions) during the decade of eighties in terms of overall agricultural production. The decade of nineties also does not show much improvement as compared to the earlier decades. Talking in terms of years within the decade of nineties, the year 1991-92 was the worst when the production declined by 2 per cent over the previous year. Another bad year was 1995-96 when the percentage change was again negative. In terms of percentage changes the best year was 1996-97 when it touched a high of 9.3 pc. It was 2.6 pc in 2007-08 from 3.8 pc in 2006-07. The overall scenario is that as compared to earlier years, agricultural production has declined. This is not a healthy sign for the economy.  

Food grain production

Food grain production is a part of agricultural production, it shows the same upward rising trend through out as the agricultural production, both in terms of decades and individual years. It is seen that as compared to 1950-51, the rise here has been consistently more than that of the agricultural production. The same is true of percentage changes. The period after 1966 (ie, after the Third Plan) witnessed a substantial increase in food grain production, basically because of the New Agricultural Strategy that focused on modern inputs (especially fertilizers, improved seeds, credit, marketing etc.) for intensively increasing food crop production of wheat, rice, jowar, bajra, and maize in selected regions.

This strategy brought about a revolution in agriculture that is also termed as Green Revolution. It is basically because of this strategy that food grain production increased substantially after the Third plan. Within the decade of 90s, the trend was, however, reverted, when in 1991-92 and then in 1995-96, food grain production declined respectively by 4.5 per cent and 5.8 per cent over the previous years.

According the latest data, the country's food grain production in the crop year ending June 30 this year, is now expected to be around 229.85 million tonne, up 0.9 per cent from an earlier estimate announced in February, largely due to record increase in rice harvest. The government had set a target to produce 233 million tonne of food grains in 2008-09 season. 

In recent months, the delay in the arrival of monsoon and expected rainfall has cast its shadow over the Kharif production in Uttar Pradesh. It is estimated that the majority of the farmers (around 91 per cent) are marginal and they will be in much trouble. It is also estimated that only 70 per cent of the agriculture area has irrigational facilities, while the remaining 30 per cent of the area depends only on rainfall. The Agriculture Department has set a target of 179 lakh metric tonnes grain production whereas during 2008-09, the Kharif production was 160 lakh metric tones. Let us hope for the best.

This brief review of agricultural production underlines the fact that agricultural performance, apart from other factors, is still, to a large extent, controlled by the vagaries of nature, though human effort, supported by state policies, has quite often played a positive role in boosting agricultural production. Although India is one of the largest food producers in the world and it has a potential to produce even more, there is a need to focus on post harvest losses which amount to about 65 million tonnes every year and which is more than the total consumption in the UK. The godowns of the Food Corporation of India all over are always over packed with food grains, which instead of reaching the poor, eventually get wasted. There is, thus, a need of evolving better post harvest technologies and food processing of food items to avoid such losses to a great extent.