Challenges to Indian agriculture : future strategy

This paper discusses production and productivity trends, and challenges to, and future strategy of, the Indian agricultural sector. The author suggests that there is a need to raise farm productivity, especially in the country’s vast rain-fed areas. Priority should be given not just to crop farming but also to livestock farming, horticulture, fodder plantation, and grassland development. Improved seeds and fertilizers, and proper irrigation facilities can play a crucial role in raising productivity. The growth of the agricultural sector depends on the growth of infrastructure facilities like irrigation, rural roads, market, power, cold storage, etc. The study points out that the decline in public investment in agriculture is mainly due to the diversification of resources in the form of subsidies for food, fertilizers, electricity, irrigation, credit, etc. The study concludes that the diseconomies in cost, lack of quality of domestic products in foreign markets, and cutthroat competition from other agrarian economies are the major constraints to Indian agricultural exports. The author suggests contract farming to raise high-value crops on small farms and public-private partnership in agricultural research.