Agriculture Sector

Key focus Areas (11th five year plan)

Inclusive Regional Growth in Agriculture sector A decentralized decision making approach which pays heed to local problems Farmers access to technology to improve production Sustainability of natural resources Enhancing quantum and efficiency of public investments in agriculture Increasing system support and rationalizing subsidies Encouraging diversification towards higher value crops and livestock Protect the farmer against food security concerns More comprehensive access to credit skills land and scale for the poor farmers

Important changes from yester-years

There is definite growth recovery after 200405 from an earlier deceleration irrespective of the series considered. The target of 4 per cent growth has not been achieved except in the case of purchasing power of agricultural GDP, which factors in an improvement in agricultures terms of trade.

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Third, the year-to-year variation in annual growth rates of output and GDP as measured by their standard deviation over five-year periods have now dropped to an all-time low although

Finally, the figures bring out two points stressed in the MTA of the Tenth Plan: that growth deceleration was much more for food grains than for agriculture as a whole; and that farm income variability rose after agriculture trade was opened under WTO

TECHNOLOGY GENERATION AND DELIVERY

Past experience in India, as well as world wide,shows that technology is one of the prime movers of agricultural productivity and growth. India currently spends about 0.6 per cent of agri-GDP on agri-R&D It is widely believed by experts that India needs to raise this to at least 1 per cent of agri-GDP, which is an average of the developing countries The generation and dissemination of technology is hampered not only by lack of investible resources but also by its sub-optimal priorities across crops, regions, and institutions, and lack of incentives

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Broadly, the issues related to technology can be put in two categories One, where productivity levels are high and have moved closer to economic potential like wheat and paddy in northwest India and castor and cotton in Gujarat Two, where productivity levels are low and far below the economic potential of available technology as seen in most parts of eastern and central India

The former require breakthrough in technology and the latter require an extension and a favorable policy environment like remunerative prices, supply of inputs, and infrastructure back-up.

Path breaking initiatives of 11th five year plan

Drawing upon the lessons of the last two decades, the Parthasarathy Committee outlines the key reforms to be carried out in the watershed programme. These include: i. Dedicated full-time implementation structure run by professionals, especially at the district-level and below. ii. A 3-phase programme, which includes an initial preparatory phase of two years focused on building local capacities and institutions that would run the programme in the subsequent years.

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iii. Central emphasis on capacity building, involving the best available expertise from the voluntary sector. iv. Recognizing local institution building as a key activity under the programme. v. Much greater emphasis on monitoring, evaluation, learning, and social audit. vi. Building a livelihoods perspective into the programme from day one rather than as an afterthought at a late stage, with special emphasis on the interests of asset-less families. vii. Enhancing the per ha norm to Rs 12,000 from the prevailing Rs. 6,000. viii. Watershed work to be carried out on clusters of micro-watersheds from 4,000 to 10,000 ha rather than the earlier 500 ha micro-watershed. ix. Creation of a national authority for rainfed areas, which would be a quasi-independent authority to manage the watershed

Salient features
Cluster approach Institution development and capacity building Monitoring and evaluation Smoother release of funds
Grassroots R&D Institutions Partners

Universities Empowerment Field Support

Technical Consultants

Grassroots Partners

RISK MANAGEMENT
Appropriate strategies are required for agricultural risk mitigation and management. The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NAIS) introduced is being implemented in 25 states and 2 UTs at present. 1,347 lakh farmers have been covered over an area of about 210.09 million ha insuring a sum amounting to about Rs 1,48,250 crore under the scheme. Two major new schemes, the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) and the RKVY were introduced during 200708 to provide states with additional resources on a 100 per cent grant basis.

RASHTRIYA KRISHI VIKAS YOJANA

The RKVY in particular has been well received, especially for its flexibility in giving states the power to choose interventions and set targets. However, there are reservations regarding the highly complex and detailed planning process and the size of funding as compared to the requirements assessed. The objective of RKVY (that is, to incentivize states into making higher expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors) seems to have been achieved to some extent. More specifically, there are states like Manipur (2.5 per cent), West Bengal (3.2 per cent),Punjab (2.8 per cent), Rajasthan (3.8 per cent), Jammu and Kashmir (3.4 per cent), and Goa (3.8 per cent) On the other hand there are states like Himachal Pradesh (11.1 per cent), Nagaland(9.7 per cent), Uttarakhand (9.8 per cent), Meghalaya(9.7 per cent), Mizoram (8.3 per cent), and Tripura(10.9 per cent), which have been undertaking high average expenditure on agriculture and allied sectors in the last three years.

COMPREHENSIVE-DISTRICT AGRICULTURE PLANS

Financial assistance of Rs 10 lakh per district was provided to the states to facilitate the preparation of C-DAPs. This effort was further supplemented by organizing workshops, interactions, meetings, and visits to the states to guide the preparation of C-DAPs For the process to be participatory and have a bottomup approach, it would require two main criteria: (a) information collection for preparation of C-DAPs should start from gram sabhas in villages as they are the basic units of planning, and (b) plans for each local body (LB) need to be prepared, discussed, and integrated in the plan of the upper local body

NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY MISSION

The National Food Security Mission (NFSM) is a new CSS, which was launched starting with rabi 200708. Th is scheme included three componentsNFSM-Rice, NFSM-Wheat, and NFSM-Pulses. The main objectives of NFSM are to increase the production of rice, wheat and pulses through area expansion and productivity enhancement in a sustainable manner in certain identified districts of the country. interventions under NFSM relate to demonstration of improved production technology, distribution of High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds, and popularizing newly released varieties, support for micro-nutrients, gypsum, zero tillage, rotavators, conoweeders, seed-drills, Integrated Pest Management (IPM), Integrated Nutrient Management (INM), extension, water lift ingand moisture saving devices, and training and mass media campaigns. Th is scheme is being implementedin 312 districts in the 17 states of Andhra Pradesh,Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana,Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh,Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu,Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal.

Immediate Action Points to Strengthen Food Grain Security

Significantly higher investments are needed in modern bulk handling storage of basic food grains, preferably under the private sector or under the PPP mode

Special focus groups, including reputable agri-business leaders, on eastern India need to be set to harness groundwater to help raise rice, wheat, and maize yields with a combination of incentives and infrastructure investments.

12th five year plan insights

India targets to achieve 9.5 per cent average economic growth in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), on back of an estimated agriculture growth rate of 4.2 per cent. The growth target for agriculture for the 12th Five Year Plan was announced by Abhijit Sen, a member of the Planning Commission.

Production
The Planning Commission maintains a projected demand of 247 MT by 2020. According to statistics 34,178,963 tonne rice has been procured by various Government agencies as on November 4, 2011. India's sugar production could increase to 25 MT in the 2011-12 marketing season (October-September), brightening the export prospects of the sweetener, as per Mr K V Thomas, the Food Minister.

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Favorable weather during the growing season in major potato producing states during 2010-11 resulted in about 13 per cent increase in production, from nearly 36 MT in 2009-10 to more than 40 MT in 2010-11. Highlighting the virtues of protected cultivation to boost horticulture productivity, a Rs 30,000 crore (US$ 6.07 billion) outlay has been proposed for bringing at least 10 per cent of the horticulture crop area in India under this high tech cultivation practice in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017). An area of 21 million hectares is under horticulture in India and contributes over 230 MT to the food basket of the country.

Exports
India is among the 15 leading exporters of agricultural products in the world. Fruits and vegetables together constitute about 92.3 per cent of the total horticultural production in the country. India has already begun exporting 300,000 tonnes of rice to Bangladesh on government-to-government account at Rs 20,000 (US$ 404.85) a tonne from September 2011. The exports will be from the 3,000,000 tonnes of non-basmati rice permitted by the Centre on the heels of record production in wheat and bulging buffer stocks. India's coffee exports rose by 42 per cent to record 360,540 tonnes in the 2010-11 coffee year ended September 2011, according to a report by the International Coffee Organization (ICO)

Investments
The agriculture services attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) worth US$ 1.42 billion between April 2000 to August 2011, The World Bank has approved a US$ 250 million credit and loan to the West Bengal Accelerated Development of Minor Irrigation Project (ADMIP) for augmenting agricultural production of small and marginal farmers.

Foreign investors' are showing interest in fertiliser makers such as Chambal Fertilisers, Coromandel International and Rallis among others, due to decontrol of phosphatic and complex fertiliser prices

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Organic farming has become a promising method of agriculture and is gaining global recognition. La Via Compazine is an international farmers' organisation, having its presence in more than 70 countries. The aim of the organisation is to provide technical, financial support to local and national farmers' organizations across the world, which includes promoting agriculture activities such as organic and natural farming Karuturi Global, the city-based publicly-held floriculture major and one of the worlds largest exporter of roses which is aggressively rolling out an agriculture business venture in Ethiopia, is looking at outsourcing 20,000 hectares of farm land in the African nation to Indian farmers on a revenue-sharing basis. The company hopes to get 35 per cent of its revenues from the agriculture business in the next couple of years Pune is witnessing a new trend where farmers are approaching consumers directly with their produce. Farmers have adopted a direct-to-home model that will enable people to buy online as well as from outlets Cargill India Private Ltd, best known for its edible oil brand Nature Fresh, is planning to expand its packaged-food portfolio in the country