Defining Agriculture

Key Points

• Introduction
• Background
• Green Revolution
• Type of Farming
• Challenges for Indian Agriculture
• Import and Export

Introduction

Nearly half of India’s national income was generated by agriculture and related industries. Agriculture accounted for almost 72% of all working people. These demonstrate how agrarian-based and backward the Indian economy was at the time of independence. The contribution of agriculture to the total national revenue fell after 70 years of independence, from 50% in 1950 to 18% in 2016–17. However, more than 60% of the workforce is still employed in agriculture today. Despite this, the country’s farmers currently live in appalling conditions.

India’s agricultural heritage extends back to the Indus Valley Civilization, and in some southern regions, even earlier. India currently comes in second place globally for farm output. Since India’s independence, agriculture has always been essential to the country’s economy. The importance of the industry is a result of the fact that agriculture provides a living for almost 55% of the nation’s population. Through different backward and forward connections, it not only meets the food and nutritional needs of 1.3 billion Indians, but also significantly contributes to production, employment, and demand generation. Additionally, it is essential for reducing poverty and maintaining the economy’s sustainable growth. Indian agriculture has advanced significantly since the country’s independence. The sector has experienced many ups and downs, from a food deficit to a food surplus.

Background

When Five Year Development Plans were created in 1950 following independence, agriculture was given top attention. However, the country did not begin to implement many significant schemes and programmes or make investments for the improvement of farmers until the 1960s. In addition, throughout this age, agricultural research efforts accelerated and picked up. The popular slogan “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan” was popularised by Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri in the 1960s. He also successfully established milk cooperatives, ushering in the White Revolution. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi planted the seeds for the Green Revolution.

 Farmers did the rest while the government provided irrigation, high-yielding dwarf wheat seeds from Mexico, and foreign inputs like chemical fertiliser and insecticides. The first harvest following the introduction of Green Revolution technology was a record-breaking three million tonnes higher in 1967. Since that time, the nation has not turned back. India advanced to food self-sufficiency from a time when food was imported.

Green Revolution

In some areas of northwestern and coastal peninsular India, high-input “green revolution” agriculture was implemented in the late 1960s in an effort to make the nation self-sufficient in food grains and less dependent on imports. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is an Indian geneticist and administrator, known for his role in India’s ‘Green Revolution‘.The high-yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the expansion of irrigation systems were all included in the green revolution package. Even though the nation had just experienced a severe drought in 1967, it only took five years for food grain production to become self-sufficient.

While the green revolution’s proponents stressed the self-sufficiency of Indian agriculture, the idea started to face criticism in the 1970s for socioeconomic and ecological reasons. The main critique leveled against the achievements of the green revolution was that high yields could only be attained under specific ideal circumstances, including enough irrigation, intense fertilizer use, monoculture, and chemical pesticides for pest control.

The average production has increased because to improvements in methods and technology from just 522 kg per hectare to 2143 kg per hectare, or four times more than we began with at the time of independence. The production of crops other than food grains, such as sugarcane, cotton, oilseeds, jute, etc., has expanded significantly along with the production of food grains. Despite a rise in area output and productivity, the sector’s share of GDP contribution has been steadily dropping. The country’s booming industrial and service sectors are the primary cause of this. At constant prices (2011–12), the Gross Value Added (GVA) from agriculture for the fiscal year 2015–16(PE) was Rs. 1604044 crores, or 15.4 percent.

Types of farming in India

Some of the major types of farming are discussed below.

i) Subsistence farming:

In India, the vast majority of farmers engage in subsistence agriculture, or cultivating for their own consumption. The farmers and their family consume the majority of the crop, so there is none left over to be sold on the market.

Small and scattered landholdings and rudimentary, archaic cultivation methods are used in this style of farming. Modern machinery like tractors and agricultural inputs like chemical fertilisers, insecticides, and herbicides are completely absent. Farmers mostly grow grains in this farming, along with oilseeds, legumes, vegetables, and sugarcane.

Subsistence farming is further classified into:

Primitive digging implements and communal or family labour are used in the practise of primitive subsistence agriculture on small plots of land. The monsoon, soil fertility, and other environmental factors all affect this sort of cultivation. These forms include nomadic herding and changing agriculture, for instance. In heavily wooded areas like the Amazon basin, tropical Africa, some of southeast Asia, and northeast India, shifting agriculture is practised. Since there is a lot of rain in these locations, the flora grows back quickly.

Trees are cut down and burned to clear a piece of land. Following the ashes’ addition to the soil, crops like maize, yams, potatoes, and cassava are cultivated. When fertility drops, the land is abandoned. Nomadic herding is prevalent in the Sahara, Central Asia, and various areas of India, such as Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir. To provide their animals with food and water, herdsmen travel along predetermined routes from one location to another. This migration is influenced by seasonal fluctuations. The most typical animals raised are sheep, camels, yaks, and goats.

Intensive

On small plots of land, more labour is used in intensive subsistence agriculture together with basic tools. The amount of produce is sufficient for both local use and outside sales. Multiple crops can be grown on the same plot each year thanks to the bright weather and fertile soil for the majority of the year. Most often grown crops include rice, wheat, maize, legumes, and oilseeds.

ii) Intensive and Extensive farming

The amount of yield per unit of land is the primary distinction between these two agricultural methods. India does not engage in extensive agriculture compared to the temperate regions of the United States and Canada. Extensive farming is the practise of cultivating a sizable area of land. Due to the wider area, there, total production may be high, but production per unit area is low. High yield per acre is a hallmark of intensive farming. In Kerala, where there is very little land available for cultivation, intensive farming is an example.

iii) Commercial farming

Since the majority of the output is sold on the market to make money, it is the exact opposite of subsistence farming. Farmers employ inputs like irrigation, synthetic fertilisers, insecticides, herbicides, high yielding varieties of seeds, etc. in this method. Cotton, jute, sugarcane, groundnuts, and other important commercial crops are grown throughout India. Since the majority of the population in this region consumes wheat, rice production in Haryana is primarily done for business reasons. However, rice farming would primarily be of the subsistence variety in India’s eastern and northeastern provinces.

iv) Plantation Farming:

This type involves the cultivation of a single cash crop for sale in domestic and foreign markets. A single cash crop that is only intended for sale is grown and processed under this style of agriculture. Spices, rubber, bananas, rubber, tea, and coffee are a few examples of plantation crops. In the nineteenth century, the British introduced the majority of these crops to India.

v) Mixed Farming:

Mixed farming is the practise of cultivating both crops and animals at the same time. Farmers who practise mixed farming also benefit economically. All of the classifications are dependent on the nature and goal of farming; hence, there may be times when they overlap. Banana cultivation, for instance, can be categorised as both commercial farming and plantation farming.

Features of Indian Agriculture

Subsistence Agriculture: Subsistence farming has been practised in the majority of India’s regions for many hundreds of years and is still widely used today. Population pressure on agriculture: About 70% of the population is still reliant on agriculture in some way, despite the growth of urbanisation and industry.

Mechanization in agriculture: Complete mechanisation of agriculture has still not been accomplished more than forty years after the Green Revolution and the revolution in agricultural machinery and equipment. Dependence on the monsoon: Despite the significant growth, only around one-third of the total planted land is currently irrigated. As a result, the monsoon still affects two thirds of harvested regions.

Variety of crops: India has both tropical and temperate climates, therefore both types of crops can be found there. India has a greater variety than a very few other nations in the globe. When we talk about the various crops in depth, you would understand it. the dominance of crops used as food Almost all farmers in the nation prioritise growing foods for human consumption. India has three separate seasons for farming and crop production: Kharif, Rabi, and Zaid. In India, particular crops are grown during each of these three seasons. For instance, wheat is a rabi crop while rice is a kharif crop.

Challenges for Indian Agriculture

The difficulties that Indian agriculture faces can be roughly divided into two categories: those that have existed for a while and those that have recently emerged due to the agricultural methods, system, changing climate, and economics.

Stagnation in Production of Major Crops: For a long time, the output of some of the main crops used to make staple foods, such as wheat and rice, has been stagnant. Our agricultural scientists, planners, and policymakers are concerned about this situation since it causes a big imbalance between the supply and demand for the country’s constantly expanding population. Farm inputs are expensive and include things like fertiliser, pesticides, HYV seeds, and labour costs. Low and medium landholding farmers would be adversely affected by such an increase.

Soil Exhaustion: Although the green revolution has helped India’s food problem, it also has drawbacks. One of them is soil depletion, which is the loss of nutrients in the soil caused by repeatedly growing the same crop. Depletion of groundwater: The second unfavourable effect of the green revolution is the drying up of fresh groundwater. Groundwater was overly used for irrigation in the dry regions of Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh. These states’ fresh groundwater condition now is grave.

Global Climatic Change: It has been expected that climate change will have a significant impact on Indian agriculture. Climate change is anticipated to cause the temperature to rise, which will raise the sea level and cause more powerful cyclones, unpredictable rainfall, etc. The production of wheat and rice would suffer as a result of these changes. In particular, the output of wheat in north India would be impacted by a rise in wintertime temperatures. The influx of salt water and an increase in cyclone frequency would have an impact on rice production in India’s coastal regions.

Impact of Globalisation: Globalization has an impact on all developing nations. The most noticeable impact is the decline in farmer income and the threat to India’s capacity to sustain agriculture. The growing input costs and declining product prices are to blame for this. This is a result of both protection for farmers and decreasing subsidies. Due to heavily supported production in the developed world, these farmers are exposed to competition as a result of trade liberalisation.

Providing Food Security:We were not self-sufficient in the production of food grains prior to the start of the green revolution in India. But during the past few decades, agriculture has not kept up with population growth, and in order to assure food security, considerations like accessibility, price, and nutritional value of the food should be made.

Farmers Suicides: Farmer suicides seem to be concentrated in areas where Indian agriculture is heavily commercialised and where peasant debt is quite high. Farmers of cash crops appeared to be far more vulnerable than those of food crops. The collapse started with the commercialization of the countryside and a sharp drop in agricultural investment. The issues have been made worse by the privatisation of numerous resources.

Import and Export

Over the past ten years, agricultural exports have increased from roughly Rs. 45710 crores to Rs. 215395 crores. India has become one of the top exporters of food grains on the global market as a result of numerous initiatives to promote the export of food grains in recent years through a grant from the World Trade Organization. Additionally, agricultural commodity imports have increased. In 2015–16, an estimated 5.63 percent of all merchandise imports were agri-imports.

Despite the fact that half of the population of this nation is employed in agriculture, the country’s farmers continue to live in appalling conditions even after 70 years of independence. This research provides a view into the circumstances and regulations that will apply to this significant group of society’s members in 70 years, as well as the difficulties they will face.