Agriculture Sector in India: Trends, Issues and Challenges

Modern day farming has transformed from the farming process of last century. Instead of farmers producing for their families, farmers are now similar to input/output managers supplying massive manufacturers that feed the country.

Under National Agro-Food Policy, agriculture sector has been identified as a National Key Result Area. Under this initiative, the agriculture sector is targeted to increase the Gross National Income by RM28.9 Billion (USD9.1 billion) to reach RM49.1 billion (USD15.4 billion) by 2020. The agricultural sector is also targeted to create more than 109,000 job opportunities by 2020, primarily in the rural areas.

Over the years agriculture has nearly diminished from the workforce. Why is this happening? In fact, ever since the Industrial Revolution’s promises of “big city success” agriculture has taken a hit. Agriculture has been a foundation for the infrastructure of the United States since it’s creation. Agricultural careers are a necessity for the nation. It is important through the history, from whom it affects, the effects on the environment and people, and to find a solution to the loss of this core element.

Another way modernization is illustrated in India is through agriculture and industry, notwithstanding the effects it had on Indians. Industry guided India to a much stronger economy, arguably guiding them to holding a spot in the top ten economies in the world (O.I). Irrigation cultivated approximately 30 million acres, awarding the country great agricultural wealth. Along with wealth also came a disappearance of the famines in India. Collectively, the country of India as a whole benefited from this modernization as it set a higher standard of living for the population.

There is no doubt that urban agriculture has many benefits people who are living in urban area especially fixing the food insecurity problem. According to the USDA Economic Research Service (2016), food insecurity can happened when a household loss access to fresh foods due the lack in social and low economic. When the population of people concentrated in an area with bad economic situation increases, it will later affects the employment opportunities and food insecurity might be a critical issue. This is supported by a

Indian groups have adopted agriculture. The ability to grow crops has a huge implication for the

South Asia is one of the most densely populated regions of the world, where despite a slow growth, agriculture remains the backbone of rural economy as it employs one half to over 90 percent of the labor force. Both extensive and intensive policy measures for agriculture

Today´s farmers produce 262 percent of agriculture with a two percent fewer input compared to than the 1950 information. Jared Diamond from the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School believes that the information of agriculture is wrong. Which he supports his theory in the article ¨ The worst mistake in the History of the Human Race¨ . Diamond explains that agriculture is not needed and a ¨waste of time¨.

The development of the industrialisation is outcome of the advancement of agriculture. Agriculture has played very important role in the

agriculture industry is able to withstand low marginal profit and can sell products at a cheap price,

Formerly, the majorly cultivated crop in North Indus and Eastern Indus were wheat and rice respectively (Ladha et al., 2000). The adaptation and expansion of Rice-Wheat farming system occurred in India with the development of short duration varieties of rice and wheat during the Green Revolution (Timsina et al., 2001). The allied farming activity is livestock rearing in IGP. The livestock comprises 10% livelihood of rice-wheat based small farm holders in Indo-Gangetic plain (Erenstein et al., 2007) with an average 3.6 cow/household (Erenstein and Thorpe, 2010, cited in Erenstein 2011) .

Today, most farmers are quite old and doesn’t have people to replace them. This makes

Agricultural productivity and its determinants are important but have not always been well measured or well understood. Many previous estimates of productivity change have been computed using a growth accounting approach. The problem with this approach is that it makes overly restrictive assumptions concerning the nature of technical change (i.e., technical change is Hicks-neutral), levels of efficiency (i.e., all states are fully technically, scale and mix efficient), and market structure (i.e., markets are perfectly competitive). The other frequently used method is Törnqvist-Theil Index for crop in Indian states (Kumar and Mruthyunjaya, 1992; Kumar and Rosegrant, 1994; Murgai, 1999; Kumar, 2001; Mukherjee and Kuroda 2001; Kumar et al., 2004; Chand et al., 2011). The main disadvantage of the index is that it violates a common sense transitivity and

Growth in the agricultural sector has been driven by increased production of major food crops such as maize, sorghum and cassava, but the sector’s performance remains below potential. In turn, the services and industrial sectors have shown strong growth. The nascent banking sector and expanding telecommunications sector are key drivers behind services growth, while construction, electricity generation, manufacturing and mining are salient sub-sectors in industrial activity. Looking ahead, the banking and telecommunication sectors will continue to support services growth, while increased electricity generation capacity will benefit the expansion of the manufacturing

India is an agricultural country. Seventy percent of its people live in villages. One-third of our National income comes from agriculture. Our economy is based on agriculture. The development of agriculture has much to do with the economic welfare of our country. Agricultural market is continuously increasing for the past couple of decades in India as the technology is developing. The continues increasing demand of food products has resulted in the increased demand of food grains and thus has increased the use of farm machinery in rural areas. India is seeing the movement of labour from rural to urban areas which with the demand of increasing production efficiency in food product is the evidence that there is a future for farm mechanization in India. Make in India is an initiative of the Government of India, to encourage companies to manufacture their products in India.