Doubling Farmers’ Income in India by 2022–23: Sources of Growth and Approaches (original) (raw)

Transforming Indian agriculture: is doubling farmers' income by 2022 in the realm of reality

Current Science, 2017

Indian agriculture is essentially monsoon-and market-dependent, and suffers frequent distresses posing threat to the welfare of farmers as well as interest in farming. Declining farm productivity and income have serious implications on rural prosperity and overall economy. Hence, increasing the real farm income, i.e. nominal (actual) income adjusted to inflation has become a priority for the state and policy planners. The Government of India, in its budget 2016–17 proposed to double the farmers’ income by 2022 (marking the 75th year of Independence) by addressing the agrarian distress and crisis. Indian agricultural databases lack farmer income series. Nevertheless, it has been estimated from survey data that the farm income growth, currently hovering around 1%, has declined since 2011–12. We discuss here the farm income trends across holding sizes and states, as well as disaggregated sources of farm income using the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) data for 2003 and 2013. The potential pathways integrating science and technology (S&T), institutions and policy to double the farmers’ income are explored in this Commentary.

Farmers’ income in India: Trends and prospects for future growth

2020

The Government of India aims to double agricultural income by 2022-23. This paper examines whether this target can be met-by analysing the trends in farmer income, sources, and factors of performance by farm class and state-and finds it unlikely. Income growth would be accelerated by improving resource use efficiency and access to agricultural extension, markets, and credit; and by diversifying towards high-value, high-growth sectors like animal husbandry and horticulture. To sustain income growth in the long term, greater resources must be allocated to agricultural research, and gainful employment opportunities must be created in the rural non-farm sector.

Doubling farmers’ income: Its necessity and possibilities in Indian context

The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

At the crucial juncture of Indian economy trying hard to shoot up its way to the trillion dollar economy club, it is inevitable that agricultural sector needs to contribute a large part to it, considering the fact that India is an agrarian economy. But this dream is impossible without thinking of a way out to increase farmers’ income because ultimately the responsibility of food security of our nation rests on their shoulders and if they are feeble, then we can never expect any dream of economical growth to come true. With farmer suicide rate being 9.4 per cent and per capita income of farmer staggering low each year, it is difficult but not impossible to increase farmers’ income. The article is a discussion of what models can be followed to achieve to some extent if not possible to fulfill the Prime Minister’s call of Doubling Farmers’ Income by 2022. The authors elaborate on the CPRV Model and the points of intervention from farm to fork pathway of any agricultural produce.

Agriculture :The Way To Inclusive Growth

IOSR Journal of Business and Management, 2013

India's agriculture sector continues to be the lifeline of its people and a key factor in the economy's overall productivity. Historically, India's agriculture growth has lagged growth in the overall economy. In fact, long-term average growth in agriculture has been close to 2%. India's population has been growing at 1.4%. Consequently, India has just managed to maintain its per capita growth in food and non-food crop production. Increasing profitability in agriculture through higher productivity has been an important goal in developing countries like India. It has become more relevant in recent years due to limited scope for expansion of arable land. Increasing yield to their technically highest level may be feasible ,through adequate investment in infrastructure and technology i.e. irrigation, land development, storage, markets, etc. Besides appropriate pricing of inputs and outputs, availability of credit and extension services would facilitate access to available technology. like most other developing countries, India has predominantly been an agrarian economy, with agriculture sector contributing the largest share to gross domestic product (GDP) and employment. Under the colonial regime, Indian agriculture was geared towards the production of commercial crops (tea, coffee, rubber, cotton, etc.), while the food crops suffered from neglect. After independence, India depended heavily on imports of food grains as it inherited a stagnant, low-productivity, food-crop sector. This paper analyses the dynamics of structural transformation of the Indian economy and major drivers of transformation, giving an overview of the past achievements and the future challenges in Indian agriculture, finally identifying the key policy issues and strategies to accelerate sustainable broad-based growth in the agriculture sector in the country.

Issues, challenges and strategies for doubling the farmers’ income in India – A review

The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

The Government of India in its annual budget 2016-17 set a policy target of doubling farmers' income by 2022. Agriculture sustains livelihood for more than half of the India's total population. Doubling farmers' income in such a short period is an overwhelming task for decision makers, scientists and policy makers. Doubling farmers' income is possible through increasing total output and better price realization in market, reduction in production costs, diversification of product, efficient post-harvest management, value addition, etc. In this paper, efforts have been made to detail issues, challenges and strategies to achieve the target of doubling farmer's income. Specific strategies suggested for achieving the target of doubling farmers' income were market management, agricultural input management, risk management and agricultural extension strategies.

Doubling Farmers Income by 2022:Trends, Challenges, Pathway and Strategies

Income is the most relevant measure to assess farmers' economic well being and sectoral transformation. The crises and distresses plaguing the sector endanger the very livelihoods and welfare of the farmers. Indian Government with the intention giving enough policy thrust on income security, proposed to double the farmers' income by 2022, platinum jubilee year of the Indian independence. The present study analysed the current status of farmers' income across holding size and regions and attempted to decipher the scope and pathways for doubling income through potential drivers. The spatial and temporal trends in farm household income from crop production, livestock farming, wages and non-farm activities have been analysed for better understanding of the present scenario. The study tracked the farmers' household income across regions and holding size between 2003 and 2013 using the countrywide situation assessment survey data collected by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) and deciphered the scope and potential for doubling the farmers' income (DFI) by 2022. The findings from the NSSO data indicated that the share of income has increased drastically from 5 per cent to 12 per cent in the case of livestock farming, 45 per cent to 48 per cent in crop production, while that of the wages and non-farm have declined between 2003 and 2013. The challenges faced by the farming community in the coming years have been highlighted for devising relevant pathway and strategies to enhance the income. Yield enhancement followed by cost reduction, fair price realisation and risk adaption has been identified as the potential pathway for doubling income. Farmers' income from crop production, livestock farming, wages and non-farm activities is an outcome of synergy and convergence between technology, extension, institutions and policies to achieve the set target. Indian agriculture needs a relook with a special focus on farm income through productivity/efficiency enhancement coupled with cost reduction, better price realisation and income risk coverage to be on the track of DFI by 2022. The study also furnished strategies for doubling the income of wheat/barley producers focusing on varietal adoption, resource conservation technologies, diversification / intensification / relay cropping, pest and disease management in vulnerable regions, and cost reducing technologies. The study concluded that the government has to integrate investment and leadership in science & technology, extension, institutions and policy interventions to accomplish the set goal by 2022.

Sources of Growth in Indian Agriculture: Implications for Food Security and Poverty

Conference Papers, 2016

s policymakers have been targeting 4 per cent growth for the agricultural sector ever since the 9th 5-year plan (1995/96-2000/2001); the target, however, has remained elusive. The sector grew at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent during 1980/81 to 1995/96, the peak of Green Revolution. However, it started showing signs of stress afterwards, with growth in it decelerating to less than 2 per cent during 1996/97 to 2004/05. The poor performance of agriculture was on account of numerous factors such as deceleration in yield growth of important crops such as rice and wheat, decline in public investment and increased frequency of extreme climate events, viz., droughts and floods. Subsequently, many corrective measures were taken to arrest the decline in agriculture and the growth recovered later on, reaching to 3.8 per cent during 2006/07-2011/12. Agriculture remains a key sector of Indian economy because of its strategic importance to food security, employment generation and poverty reduction, despite a rapid decline in its income share to less than 15 per cent in 2012-13. Close to 70 per cent of India's population lives in rural areas and about 70 per cent of it depends on agriculture for its livelihood. By 2030 India's population will exceed 1.5 billion, and to feed this number the country will require approximately 320 million tonnes of food grains, 290 million tonnes of vegetables and fruits, 185 million tons of milk, 26 million tonnes of meat, eggs and fish and 23 million tonnes of edible oils (Joshi and Kumar, 2011). Balancing this demand with domestic supply, however, will not be an easy task. Agriculture will face a confluence of biotic and abiotic pressures. Land, water and energy will emerge as main limiting factors. India's net cropped area has been stagnating at around 140 million hectares; hence there is little scope to source growth through area expansion. Intensification of the existing production systems will be constrained by acute scarcity of water and energy. Moreover, climate change will pose a significant threat to the sustainable development of agriculture. Fostering rapid and sustainable growth in agriculture, thus, remains to be a major policy challenge.

India 2039--Transforming Agriculture: Productivity, Markets, and Institutions

Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies, 2012

The central premise of this article is that Indian agriculture must undergo a fundamental transformation between now and 2039, both on the demand and supply side, by emphasizing higher value outputs, increased productivity, and redefined public and private sector roles. Driving this transformation will be the broader trends in the wider Indian and global economies: a dramatic shift in food demand away from staple food grains to higher value products (such as vegetables, milk, eggs, poultry, and fruits) caused by India's affluence, rising energy costs, much higher rural wages, increasing international prices of agriculture inputs and outputs, the availability of new seeds and other technologies, and, importantly, adverse effects of global climate change. Given the limitations on expanding cultivable area and rising water distress, the only way to meet India's food needs will be through dramatically increasing productivity and the efficiency of water use.