Linkages between Value Addition, Employment and Farmers’ Income

India has made significant strides towards growth, so much so that today it is well beyond a selfsustained unit – it is one of the world’s fastest growing economies and a vital cog in the world economic engine. There is sufficient data available on this which breaks down the growth numbers into sectors showing clear contributors towards national gross domestic product. India’s services sector is the biggest contributor, followed by industries and allied sector and finally agriculture. If one analyses the agriculture sector’s growth, one clear fact that emerges is, that we have achieved very high levels of productivity and in fact our farmers are matching the increasing demands across all products (food grains, fruits and vegetables, meat, poultry, livestock and milk, etc.). Despite high productivity and record bumper outputs, our agricultural sector remains in a constant state of distress. To top it all up, the limited employment options in agriculture sector has almost stagnated with abysmally low incomes, wastage of produce and a lack of appropriate infrastructure hurting our farmers badly. Rapid changing texture of agricultural production, rising input costs and food inflation has resulted in non-remunerative returns to the farmer. Therefore it becomes imperative to study and devise feasible strategies on how farmer’s incomes can be improved. This can be done partially by means of favourable policy formulation and partially by generating enough incentives for the potential investors and farmers on the ground. This is where value addition in agriculture can play an important role in enhancing the economic value of the agri-produce. The study emphasises why it is pertinent to move from “agriculture” to “agri-business” mindset, how value addition on farm produce can generate rural employment and significantly improve farmers’ income. It has also touched upon other critical success factors like agri-marketing in the value chain process.