Indian Agriculture & Globalization

Probably the most neglected subject among todays youth is agriculture. How many of us actually know about the state of agriculture in India. Here I would like to bring out some points on the state of Indian Agriculture and the effects of Globalization.

India is the number 1 producer in the world in as many as 10 commodities and number 2 producer in plenty of other commodities. The green revolution has improved India's production from 50 million tonnes to 200+ million tonnes. This is no mean achievement by any standard. There is a 7% growth rate and 900 tonnes of gold is purchased by the middle class(this is enough money to meet the millenium development goal).Sensex is zooming(well after the recent hitch up, it still is moving up).Quite amazing.

On the other side....

More than 50% of India is malnourished. The Human Development Index is 127(i.e.we are the 127th best country to live in!!) inspite of our high flying sensex. Even Palestine would be a safer place to live.Bangladesh has moved up 4 places with all their internal troubles.But how do we convert this GDP growth into employment?
A classic case of globalization effect. In 2002-03, the farmers were asked to plant vanilla as it would fetch them high returns. They did. It fetched them as much as 1400/bg(not too sure of the quantity). Next year, i.e. in 2004, no one was ready to pay more than 120/bg. Nobody told them that the high returns they got that year was because there was a country named Madagascar which had problems that time and hence that rate.

There is a need to improve our standard of foodgrains. Even war-torn Iraq rejected our wheat! There are various schemes coming up for the 127+ million farmer families but the 107+ million agricultural labour families have not been considered by anyone. Out of the 250,000 crores set aside by the government for the 60 million households, if that money can reach them directly, each household would get Rs.40000!! thus almost entirely eliminating poverty(This was a simple calculation but its meaning is tremendous). Farmers still loan mostly from money lenders(31.7%) who charge outrageous interest rates,banks contribute just 17%.Banks have reached only 1.97crore farmers of the 12.7 crore farmers. This is something which various
organizations, banks and NGO's are working on at the present.The estimated number of extension officers required are 6,25,000 whereas presently there are just 70,000 of them.This amounts to 40 mins/farmer/year.This definitely can be worked upon. There are various initiatives in various fields on various agricultural activities and rural market. But the governments participation is of utmost importance in this regard.