*Agriculture in India

               Agriculture in India has a significant history. Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted for 16.6% of the GDP in 2009, about 50% of the total workforce. The economic contribution of agriculture to India's GDP is steadily declining with the country's broad-based economic growth. Still, agriculture is demographically the broadest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic fabric of India.

*Overview

features rain-fed farming and limited agricultural activity

 

               Per 2010 FAO world agriculture statistics, India is the world's largest producer of many fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, major spices, select fresh meats, select fibrous crops such as jute, several staples such as millets and castor oil seed. India is the second largest producer of wheat and rice, the world's major food staples. India is also the world's second or third largest producer of several dry fruits, agriculture-based textile raw materials, roots and tuber crops, pulses, farmed fish, eggs, coconut, sugarcane and numerous vegetables. India ranked within the world's five largest producers of over 80% of agricultural produce items, including many cash crops such as coffee and cotton, in 2010. India is also one of the world's five largest producers of livestock and poultry meat, with one of the fastest growth rates, as of 2011.

One report from 2008 claimed India's population is growing faster than its ability to produce rice and wheat. Other recent studies claim India can easily feed its growing population, plus produce wheat and rice for global exports, if it can reduce food staple spoilage, improve its infrastructure and raise its farm productivity to those achieved by other developing countries such as Brazil and China.

In fiscal year ending June 2011, with a normal monsoon season, Indian agriculture accomplished an all time record production of 85.9 million tons of wheat, a 6.3 percent increase from a year earlier. Rice output in India also hit a new record at 95.3 million tons, a 7% increase from the year earlier Lentils and many other food staples production also increased year over year. Indian farmers, thus produced about 71 kilograms of wheat and 80 kilograms of rice for every member of Indian population in 2011. The per capita supply of rice every year in India is now higher than the per capita consumption of rice every year in Japan.

India exported about 2 billion kilograms each of wheat and rice in 2011 to Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh and other regions of the world.

Aquaculture and catch fishery is amongst the fastest growing industries in India. Between 1990 and 2010, Indian fish capture harvest doubled, while aquaculture harvest tripled. In 2008, India was the world's sixth largest producer of marine and freshwater capture fisheries, and the second largest aquaculture farmed fish producer. India exported 600,000 metric tonnes of fish products to nearly half of all the world's countries.

India has shown a steady average nationwide annual increase in the kilograms produced per hectare for various agricultural items, over the last 60 years. These gains have come mainly from India's green revolution, improving road and power generation infrastructure, knowledge of gains and reforms.Despite these recent accomplishments, agriculture in India has the potential for major productivity and total output gains, because crop yields in India are still just 30% to 60% of the best sustainable crop yields achievable in the farms of developed as well as other developing countries.^.Additionally, losses after harvest due to poor infrastructure and unorganized retail cause India to experience some of the highest food losses in the world

*History

         Vedic literature provides some of the earliest written record of agriculture in India. Rigveda hymns, for example, describes plowing, fallowing, irrigation, fruit and vegetable cultivation. Other historical evidence suggests rice and cotton were cultivated in the Indus Valley, and plowing patterns from the Bronze Age have been excavated at Kalibangan in Rajasthan. Bhumivargaha, another ancient Indian Sanskrit text, suggested to be 2500 years old, classifies agricultural land into twelve categories: urvara (fertile), ushara (barren), maru (desert), aprahata (fallow), shadvala (grassy), pankikala (muddy), jalaprayah (watery), kachchaha (land contiguous to water), sharkara (full of pebbles and pieces of limestone), sharkaravati (sandy), nadimatruka (land watered from a river), and devamatruka (rainfed). Some archaeologists believe rice was a domesticated crop along the banks of the Indian river ganges in the sixth millennium BC. So were species of winter cereals (barley, oats, and wheat) and legumes (lentil and chickpea) grown in Northwest India before the sixth millennium BC. Other crops cultivated in India 3000 to 6000 years ago, include sesame, linseed, safflower, mustards, castor, mung bean, black gram, horse gram, pigeonpea, field pea, grass pea (khesari), fenugreek, cotton, jujube, grapes, dates, jackfruit, mango, mulberry, and black plum. Indian peasants had also domesticated cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs and horses thousands of years ago. Some scientists claim agriculture in India was widespread in the Indian peninsula, some 3000–5000 years ago, well beyond the fertile plains of the north. For example, one study reports twelve sites in the southern Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh providing clear evidence of agriculture of pulses (Vigna radiata and Macrotyloma uniflorum), millet-grasses (Brachiaria ramosa and Setaria verticillata), wheats (Triticum diococcum, Triticum durum/aestivum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), hyacinth bean (Lablab purpureus), pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), cotton (Gossypium sp.), linseed (Linum sp.), as well as gathered fruits of Ziziphus and two Cucurbitaceae^.
Some claim Indian agriculture began by 9000 BC as a result of early cultivation of plants, and domestication of crops and animals.Settled life soon followed with implements and techniques being developed for agriculture. Double monsoons led to two harvests being reaped in one year. Indian products soon reached the world via existing trading networks and foreign crops were introduced to India. Plants and animals—considered essential to their survival by the Indians—came to be worshiped and venerated.
The middle ages saw irrigation channels reach a new level of sophistication in India and Indian crops affecting the economies of other regions of the world under Islamic patronage. Land and water management systems were developed with an aim of providing uniform growth.Despite some stagnation during the later modern era the independent Republic of India was able to develop a comprehensive agricultural program.

*Agriculture and colonialism

            Over 2500 years ago, Indian farmers had discovered and begun farming many spices and sugarcane. It was in India, between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, that the Persians, followed by the Greeks, discovered the famous “reeds that produce honey without bees” being grown. These were locally called साखर, pronounced as saccharum (ζάκχαρι). On their return journey, the Macedonian soldiers carried the "honey bearing reeds," thus spreading sugar and sugarcane agriculture. People in India had also invented, by about 500 BC, the process to produce sugar crystals. In the local language, these crystals were called khanda (खण्ड), which is the source of the word candy.
Prior to 18th century, cultivation of sugar cane was largely confined to India. A few merchants began to trade in sugar - a luxury and an expensive spice in Europe until the 18th century. Sugar became widely popular in 18th century Europe, then graduated to becoming a human necessity in the 19th century all over the world. This evolution of taste and demand for sugar as an essential food ingredient unleashed major economic and social changes. Sugarcane does not grow in cold, frost-prone climate; therefore, tropical and semitropical colonies were sought. Sugarcane plantations, just like cotton farms, became a major driver of large and forced human migrations in 19th century and early 20th century - of people from Africa and from India, both in millions - influencing the ethnic mix, political conflicts and cultural evolution of various Caribbean, South American, Indian Ocean and Pacific island nations. The history and past accomplishments of Indian agriculture thus influenced, in part, colonialism, first slavery and then slavery-like indentured labor practices in the new world, Caribbean wars and the world history in 18th and 19th centuries.

*Indian agriculture since 1947

               Over 50 years since its independence, India has made immense progress towards food security. Indian population has tripled, but food-grain production more than quadrupled: there has thus been substantial increase in available food-grain per capita.
Prior to the mid-1960s India relied on imports and food aid to meet domestic requirements. However, two years of severe drought in 1965 and 1966 convinced India to reform its agricultural policy, and that India could not rely on foreign aid and foreign imports for food security. India adopted significant policy reforms focused on the goal of foodgrain self-sufficiency. This ushered in India's Green Revolution. It began with the decision to adopt superior yielding, disease resistant wheat varieties in combination with better farming knowledge to improve productivity. The Indian state of Punjab led India's green revolution and earned itself the distinction of being the country's bread basket.
The initial increase in production was centred on the irrigated areas of the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. With both the farmers and the government officials focusing on farm productivity and knowledge transfer, India's total foodgrain production soared. A hectare of Indian wheat farms that produced an average of 0.8 tons in 1948, produced 4.7 tons of wheat in 1975 from the same land. Such rapid growths in farm productivity enabled India to become self-sufficient by the 1970s. It also empowered the smallholder farmers to seek further means to increase food staples produced per hectare. By 2000, Indian farms were adopting wheat varieties capable of yielding 6 tons of wheat per hectare.

WomenPower: Under-acknowledged force behind India’s Bumper Crops…

 Women are  involved in agricultural activities in Nuapot village, West Bangal

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                Women at work in rice paddy fields in West Bangal With agricultural policy success in wheat, India's Green Revolution technology spread to rice. However, since irrigation infrastructure was very poor, Indian farmer innovated with tube-wells, to harvest ground water. When gains from the new technology reached their limits in the states of initial adoption, the technology spread in the 1970s and 1980s to the states of eastern India Bihar,Orissa and West Bangal. The lasting benefits of the improved seeds and new technology extended principally to the irrigated areas which account for about one-third of the harvested crop area. In the 1980s, Indian agriculture policy shifted to "evolution of a production pattern in line with the demand pattern" leading to a shift in emphasis to other agricultural commodities like oilseed, fruit and vegetables. Farmers began adopting improved methods and technologies in dairying, fisheries and livestock, and meeting the diversified food needs of India's growing population. As with Rice, the lasting benefits of improved seeds and improved farming technologies now largely depends on whether India develops infrastructure such as irrigation network, flood control systems, reliable electricity production capacity, all season rural and urban highways, cold storage to prevent food spoilage, modern retail, and competitive buyers of produce from the Indian farmer. This is increasingly the focus of Indian agriculture policy
India's agricultural economy is undergoing structural changes. Between 1970 and 2011, the GDP share of agriculture has fallen from 43 to 16 percent. This isn't because of reduced importance of agriculture, or a consequence of agricultural policy. This is largely because of the rapid economic growth in services, industrial output, and non-agricultural sectors in India between 2000 to 2010.

Some facts, which need a little careful analysis.

• Indian population is 48.1% women and 51.9% men; situation is marginally balanced in Rural India (48.6% women and 51.4% men)
• Despite the smaller contribution in total population, it is estimated that women make up 60% of the farming population and complete 70% of the farm work.
• In India (rural+urban),  the labour force participation rate of women is 22.7%, less than half of the men’s rate of 51.6%
• But in Rural India, agriculture & allied industrial sectors employ as much as 89.5% of the total female labour
• Women have extensive workloads with dual responsibility for farm and household production
• Women’s work is getting harder and more time-consuming due to ecological degradation and changing agricultural technologies and practices
• Women contribute considerably to household income through farm and nonfarm activities as well as through work as landless agricultural labourers
• Women’s work as family labour is underestimated
• There are high degrees of inter-state and intra-state variations in gender roles in agriculture, environment and rural production
                 We know that most of the developing countries depend on agriculture for livelihood and food security. Agriculture needs manpower, if the manpower split into gender wise, amazing fact is that the women contribution is greater or equal to men. The rural women are very active in cultivation, dairy, fisheries, crop processing and other allied areas. Nearly 70% of Indian rural women are employed in agriculture and they are responsible for 60-80% of food production. They play major role in animal husbandry, horticulture and poultry which are their main source of income and it is noticed that they always involved in labor and tolerance intensive works like transplantations and weeding operations.
  Among the rural women workforce, most of them are agriculture labor and some of cultivators. There are lot of variations in involvement of women in agriculture which is based on their culture, economic status, regions and crop selection. While the men are moving to cities for better occupations the women are taking care of cultivation and some times they used to work as farm labor to support their family needs. The weaker section of the women used to market their produces such as selling vegetables and other food crops in farmers market or door to door. Most of the women cultivators are involved in food crops rather than cash crops since cash crops need more marketing efforts which are traditionally taken care by men. The women in higher socio economic sections are not involved directly in cultivation or live stock and they used to help in labor administration, supporting activities and accounting.
  Rural Indian women are extensively involved in agricultural activities. However, the nature and extent of their involvement differs with the variations in agro-production systems. The mode of female participation in agricultural production varies with the land-owning status of farm households. Their roles range from managers to landless labourers. In overall farm production, women’s average contribution is estimated at 55% to 66% of the total labour with percentages much higher in certain regions.
  
  
  In order to empower and improve the women farmers’ productivity, they need to have
  
• Proper farm training and capacity building programs to compete various challenges in their rural livelihood.
• New legislations have to be taken place in farm land reforms like allocating the wasteland to women self help groups (SHG).
• Rural women have been acknowledged as the core food producers and processors, banks should recognize them as entrepreneurs, loans and Kissan credit cards have to be approved for them.
• Special support and market connectivity has to establish for rural women artisans to sell their Agri-based handicrafts.
• The farm labor wages should be the same without gender differences and the equal employment benefits have to be given in all rural schemes like MNREGA.

Government’s Efforts to Empower Rural Women
                There are some rural women welfare schemes &  also the NGOs who are working on women empowerment for poverty alleviation. But there is still a long way to go and also the real test of such schemes & projects is their actual performance on the ground. There is still a big question mark on whether the intended benefit is really going to the Women or squandered off  due to the prevalence of large scale corruption across most of the schemes launched by  Central & State Governments.

• Central Govt. Scheme – ‘Promotion and Strengthening of Agricultural Mechanization through Training, Testing, and Demonstration, during 2009-10, about 2630 gender-friendly equipment have been distributed amongst farm women.
• Under the scheme for Outsourcing of Training and Demonstration of Newly Developed Agricultural Equipment, including Horticultural Equipment at Farmers’ Fields, separate physical targets have been fixed and 10% of the funds have been allocated for women farmers.  During 2009-10 a total of 484 women have been imparted training (till December 2009) at Farm Machinery, Training, and Testing Institutes (FMTTIs).  A list of about 30 identified gender-friendly tools and equipment developed by the Research and Development Organization for use in different farm operations has been sent to all states and UTs. for popularizing them.
• State governments have been directed to earmark 10% of total funds allocated for the training for women farmers”