Indian economy is growing faster owing to the industrial and agricultural sectors since the revolution. India has also shown its dominance and sustained growth in the service and manufacturing sectors as well. But primarily, India is a land of agriculture. Our forefathers were agriculturist. Almost seventy per cent of Indian population is engaged in agricultural practices either directly or indirectly. Earlier, traditional methods were used in agriculture; farmers were using bullock carts, and were sowing seeds manually. Nowadays, farmers have adopted modern tools and techniques in agriculture and are now able to produce double output. Modern agriculture includes implementation of various new technological and institutional factors like use of HYV quality seeds, improved ploughs & irrigation, fertilizers, tractors, harvesters, and other important inputs.

India is the largest producer of sugarcane, tea, cashew, coconuts, turmeric and black pepper and ranks second largest producer in terms of rice, wheat, groundnut and inland fish. Agriculture is the largest economic sector and plays a very important role in the overall socio-economic development of India. Agriculture and other allied sectors account around 16.6 per cent of the total GDP in the year 2007. Moreover, India produces around 10 per cent of the total world’s fruit production, ranking first in banana and sapota production.

Indian Government is taking measure of meeting agricultural requirements by way of introducing various schemes such as construction of rural go downs, strengthening of agricultural marketing infrastructure, developing information network, and grading & standardization. Further, Indian Government has also established the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute for launching new techniques and procedures for the various agricultural experiments, data analysis and specializes in statistical implementations for cattle and plants breeding.

Ministry of Agriculture has been giving much emphasis on commercializing agricultural production in the country. Sufficient food production & distribution has been considered high priority and global issue. On the other side, the ministry is also emphasizing on practice of horticulture by way of NHM and dissmenting latest production techniques.

Farmers holds small piece of land of their ancestral properties and practice agriculture. The average size of holding by each state varies from 0.5 hectare (Kerala), 0.75 hectare (Tamil Nadu), 3 hectares (Maharashtra), 3.65 hectares (Rajasthan), 4.03 hectares (Punjab) and the highest of 7.28 hectare (Nagaland). Sizes and areas vary due to the natural factors such as rain, soil, climate, population and quality of land. The agricultural output also differs due to inadequate rainfall in a particular year.

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