This is also because there is a big difference between the income of the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors and it is increasing day by day. Agriculture, which contributed 70 percent to India’s gross domestic product in 1950, has now dwindled to only 14 percent.
In 2017, Prime Minister Modi’s resolution that this agricultural income would be doubled by 2022 was welcomed by everyone. Efforts were also made for that, but it contributes 55 percent to the total domestic sector, while the 15 percent of the population engaged in industries contributes 29 percent to the total GDP. If only 14 percent of the 52 percent share comes from agriculture, then it means that the remaining 48 percent of the population gets 86 percent of the income. In the process of development, agriculture develops first and the agricultural population keeps shifting towards other sectors like industries and services. In more developed countries, the GDP of industries is higher while services are in second place, but in India, on the contrary, the share of income of the services sector is higher than that of the industrial sector. In developed countries like India, the contribution of agriculture is only 5 percent or less in those countries, but the population of those countries is also less than 5 percent. Therefore, if the GDP in India is 14 percent and the population is also 14 percent, there is no problem, but it can never happen, but despite further development in agriculture, the share of agriculture will decrease further and that of non-agriculture will increase further. The reason for the decrease in population on agriculture is that other non-agricultural professions are not developing in the country in such a way that they can provide employment to the population that is idle from agriculture. Along with this, another factor related to Indian agriculture is that agriculture is the main profession of villages and there has been a constant difference in the development of cities and villages. Still 70 percent of the country’s population lives in villages. Due to the lack of growth of non-agricultural professions in villages, villagers have to go to cities for employment. This fact came to light when during the Covid period, crores of people from big cities kept walking hundreds of miles with their few belongings on their bicycles or on their heads, which proves that even after coming to the city, those workers could not build their permanent homes and continued to suffer the same poverty as they used to suffer in the villages. In India, 4 crore children are forced to do child labor, due to which there is a lack of employment opportunities for adults, but there are many opportunities for child labor. If not all of these children who are doing labor, then most of them belong to villages, although the definition of poverty is controversial. More than 30 crore people in the country live below the poverty line, of which a large number are rural people. Recently, a report came out that only 4 percent of students from villages are in higher education institutions and even though education is free up to 14 years, the literacy rate in India is only 74 percent or 26 out of 100 children are illiterate. The majority of children who drop out of school before the eighth grade are rural children. In fact, India’s agriculture is burdened by population. India has 17.6 percent of the world’s total population, which is why India is the first country in the world in terms of population, but its area is only 9.4 percent, while water, which is the most needed for agriculture, is only 4 percent, which is much less than the agricultural needs. In Punjab, Haryana and UP, where the Green Revolution was more successful, 66 percent of the water is being extracted from the ground through tubewells. This does not happen in developed countries. There is abundance of water and land. Extensive agriculture can be adopted to increase yield. Other areas should be brought under agriculture but there is no opportunity for large-scale agriculture in India. An attempt is being made to get more yield from limited land with more fertilizers, chemicals and hard work, due to which those chemicals, after dissolving in the air, water and soil, have become the cause of many diseases and are dissolved in food, whereas in those countries, there is no need for more chemicals. There are 15 different climate-based agricultural zones in India. The crop cycle of each zone is different, but in India, only those crops for which there is a sure market are sown, whether they are related to the climate or soil or not.
India’s soil is getting weaker every year due to chemicals, which is not a problem of those developed countries. In developed countries, 82 percent of agricultural products are prepared and sold in the country or abroad. An industrial unit based on the crop that is sown has been set up on that farm itself, for example, where grapes are cultivated, there is a factory for products made from grapes such as glucose, alcohol, etc. There is a sugar mill on a beet farm, a pulse processing plant on a pulse farm, etc. But in India, not only 12 percent of the products are prepared and packaged, then being small farmers, those industrial units are not on their farms but in the cities, far from the farms, even though the raw material is taken from the villages. The most important element for increasing agricultural output is land. In industries, one machine can be an alternative to 20 machines, but in agriculture, one acre cannot be an alternative to 20 acres. 40 percent of the farmers in India are those whose agricultural land is less than 1 acre. They cannot even get the benefit of support price and assured marketing because they have to buy wheat and paddy themselves.
Many farmers are also forced to buy agricultural products from the market. Agricultural economists believe that agricultural land that is less than 15 acres cannot even meet the needs of the farmer’s family, but in India, only 7 percent of such farmerswhose holdings are more than 15 acres. 79 percent of India’s farmers are indebted but there is a correlation between agricultural holdings and debt which means that those whose holdings are large are more indebted because their borrowing capacity is greater but this is not the case in developed countries. In these circumstances, the model being adopted in developed countries cannot be adopted to improve the condition of the farmer. Land cannot be increased. Intensive farming is a necessity but to prevent soil degradation, the use of organic fertilizers should be increased instead of chemicals. The provincial governments should be given assured marketing and minimum support price for the main crops of the province in collaboration with the central government. Non-farm businesses should be implemented in villages according to plans, the use of canal water should be increased and above all, industrial units should be started under the cooperative sector according to the produce of that area so that business in other professions besides agriculture can get a boost.
