New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%.
About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in GDP has plunged to around 15%, but the share of workforce dependent on agriculture has not seen any significant fall. About 55% of India’s workers are either farmers or farm hands; in the 1980s, this number used to be 60%.
Between then and now, the nature of farming has changed, with rural households moving away from producing grains for subsistence to growing high-value commercial and perishable crops where price risks are high.
For the $2.3 trillion economy of India, Asia’s third largest, one number - over half of the country’s workforce engaged in an enterprise that is not only non-remunerative but also fraught with production and price risks - tellingly explains the anger which took over India’s rural hinterland in June. The fact that farmers chose the bumper crop year of 2016-17 to protest means they were willing to pardon governments for consecutive years of drought (in 2014 and 2015), seeing it as an “Act of God”, but not when crop prices plunged while the government allowed cheap imports. Read more
About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in GDP has plunged to around 15%, but the share of workforce dependent on agriculture has not seen any significant fall. About 55% of India’s workers are either farmers or farm hands; in the 1980s, this number used to be 60%.
Between then and now, the nature of farming has changed, with rural households moving away from producing grains for subsistence to growing high-value commercial and perishable crops where price risks are high.
For the $2.3 trillion economy of India, Asia’s third largest, one number - over half of the country’s workforce engaged in an enterprise that is not only non-remunerative but also fraught with production and price risks - tellingly explains the anger which took over India’s rural hinterland in June. The fact that farmers chose the bumper crop year of 2016-17 to protest means they were willing to pardon governments for consecutive years of drought (in 2014 and 2015), seeing it as an “Act of God”, but not when crop prices plunged while the government allowed cheap imports. Read more