Table of Contents
Abstract
Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in India since the greater part of the workforce is yet occupied with agribusiness for their occupations and business. Today, India is a larger supplier toward many agricultural products like tea, coffee, spices, oil meal, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, rice, meat, and marine items to the worldwide market. As far as production, India is the top producer of milk, and second largest in wheat and rice, despite the above fact the national Gross Domestic Product has increased as of late, but still, there are issues faced by the farmers.The main purpose of this paper is to identify the reasons that the agricultural industry is facing and how can modern technology solve their issues. Keywords: GDP, agricultural production, modern technology.
Introduction
Agribusiness is a central part of the Indian economy. Food is a basic necessity of each person; also, a normal Indian spends a lot on food. It is said that agriculture in India is a backbone for Indian Economy, where over half of the population relies upon agriculture as it is the main source of their income. The commitment of agricultural in the underlying two decades towards the all-out national yield is between 48% and 60%. In spite of the fact that the involvement of this sector towards the Gross Domestic Product(GDP) has faced a reduction from around 30 percent in the year 1990 – 1991 to under 15 percent in the year 2011 – 2012. Agriculture is marked as the pillar of Indian economy primarily as: agriculture initiates high share of the country’s national income, which has been seen declining from 55 percent in the mid-1950s to around 25 percent in mid-2000s and now its 15.45 percent. More than half of the people were employed in the agriculture sector until 1971. Recent census data for the year 2017-18 indicates that now 41.61 percent of the population is in this sector.
The development of different regions and the entire economy relies upon the performance of agriculture to a significant degree. As agriculture has also shared a major part as foreign trade payee. Since of its backwardness and developing connections with the other economic sectors, developments in agriculture performance have a multiplier impact on the whole economy. Its execution, thusly, generates a lot of job for people and can help to remove poverty in India. India has gained an excellent level of progress in the area of agriculture. since independence, it has experienced a green, white, yellow, and a blue revolution, even improvement in output, yields, and area under many crops. Today, India is the biggest producer of milk, organic products, cashew nuts, coconuts and tea on the planet, the second biggest producer of wheat, vegetables, sugar and fish and the third biggest producer of tobacco what’s more, rice.
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The information provided by the Department of Economics and Statics (DES) states that the production of food grains for the year 2017-2018 is 284.83 million tons which are expanded when compared with (2016-2017) 275.11 million tons. It has even seen that till date it is the highest production when compared within the last 5 years. This is a good indication for the Indian economy from the farming segment. Then again, on promoting front, Indian agribusiness is up ’til now going up against the issues, for instance, low-level business segment, proper use of modern technology, and helpful data required by agriculturists on various issues in cultivating. 2
Significance of Agriculture
About 70% of the people in India live in rural sectors where people are living in a remote and backward area as in terms of education and poverty where agriculture is the main occupation for them. in order to remove in poverty, major preferences should be given in the agriculture sector as Achieving an eight to nine percent rate of growth in the overall total GDP may not resolve the problem of poverty so in order to achieve this there should be the proper planning for the development in farming practices, improve rural infrastructure, and access to resources for food production to increase the productivity of agriculture at a rapid rate. Agriculture acts a crucial role in the Indian economy, it not helps in the formation of capital but also provides provision of employment opportunities for people. The crude materials that are available to the industries are created inside the agrarian division and it is a business opportunity for industrial products. but in recent years we have seen that there is a shift in employment from the agricultural sector which was 63.59 percent in 1991 and has declined to 41.61 percent in 2017-18 to the service sector or industrial sector where farmers are relocating to urban regions in search of employment as in rural area the only scope of earning is practicing farming but due to heavy debt, large scale in the failure of crops or the government doesn’t provide a proper price for their crops so they have to take this step.
Changes in Agriculture
Changing the agrarian economy since independence: Since independence, the agrarian economy has seen tremendous changes. The significant changes that were occurred were: 1. Land use pattern: Land is the primary features of agriculture. it is important to understand the land use pattern to make proper use of resources that are accessible to us. Land in India is categories as: Net sown area, Not available for cultivation, Forests, Fallow land and Other Uncultivated lands 2. Changing farming structure: The changing structure of the Indian agrarian division is looked from two angles: employment and land holding. The share of agriculture in business has declined from around 63.51 percent in 1950-51 to 41.61 in 2017-18. At the same time, the share of agribusiness in GDP additionally declined from 54.66 percent in 1950- 51 to 24 percent by 2018. 263 million people are engaged in the agriculture sector and over half of them are now agricultural laborers, a trend observed for the first time in the past 40 years. by 7.1% farmer declined and by 3.5 % farmer-labor increased
Changes in cropping design: it refers to the share of land under different crops for a particular point of time. these are determined by rainfall, climate, temperature, and soil type. there are reasons why the pattern is changing because of no proper tech, irrigation no backup for the climate. earlier the area under food crop was 76.7 and now it is 62.7 whereas 23.3 percent was for nonfood crop which increased to 36.6 percent. This exchanging of land from sustenance harvests to non-sustenance crops were principally disposed of by the overwhelming cost in the market and benefit per hectare. 4. Input use pattern: Agricultural production and efficiency to a great extent rely on the information sources connected and the strategies used. The main facts that that is used in the agrarian part are innovation, movement of the Agricultural Sector in India, water, manure, composts, insect, sprays, pesticides, seeds, and farming executes. The land surface is always fixed despite in the expansion in the population, and therefore, just a particular portion is accessible for cultivation. the possibility of generating land is not possible but generating cultivation can be done if the proper method of production with proper technique is used.
Problems Faced in Agriculture
Major problems faced in agriculture:
Shrinking Landholding: Approx 159.7 million hectares of land was there for cultivation whereas now 82.6 million is available for growing. Increase in the population and breakdown of the joint family system, poor farmers are compelled to sell a division of their area to repay their debt that has led to constant sub-division of the agricultural field into smaller and smaller plots, which leads to fragmentation of holdings and therefore cultivation becomes uneconomic because of the reduced size of the land. As a result, a major portion of land is not brought under the plow. According to the census, the small and marginal landholding ( less than 1 or max 2 hectors) constitutes up to 86.21% whereas medium holding or semi medium holding consist up to 4.79 and only 9 percent have large land holdings. due to this farmers are forced to quit agriculture and moved to cities in search of cities
Lack of technology: Lack of investment in research by govt.: lack of education. According to the census, 58% of rural households are agricultural households in which 30 percent are below the poverty line, uneducated and are completely dependent on agriculture. however, if farmers can increase their production and achieve more through technology the problem of poverty and illiteracy could be solved. Technology can encourage farmers to increase their awareness regarding the crops to be produced for best return, get the most productive farming methods and make arrangements based upon climate forecasts. Educating the farmers regarding techniques to avoid soil erosion, improving yields byways of applying proper fertilizers when required and, the importance of crop rotation and with the help of technology they can grow crops in a proper way like when cereals are grown on an area its fertility get reduced to some degree which can be restored if other crops such as pulses are grown on the same land on a rotational basis. With the help of technology many problems can be solved but at the same time the government has to take initiative in the research and development section as only 0.30 percent of their agri GDP is spend in this section whereas millions of Indians dependent on this sector.
Climatic change: Crop pattern: Crop security: Storage facility: Agriculture directly relies on climate, like temperature, sunlight, and water are the foremost operators of crop growth. farmers depend on monsoon as water is essential for the crops to grow. change in climate directly hits the three aspects of food preservation: availability, access, and absorption. If production falls, the availability of food decreases. Climatic change mostly strikes the poor. they don’t have the income to purchase food, so their access to it is affected. This, thus, has an impact on health and affects absorption. Whereas change in climatic conditions, can simply allows some areas to grow new crops and generate a large amount of production but farmers are opposing or unwilling to give it a try as they have no proper crop security and storage facilities because if somehow they fail in producing they will be left with nothing or if they generate a lot of production they don’t have any proper place to store under such circumstances they are forced to sell their production at the common market rate which is bound to be low.
Agricultural marketing: exploitative market One of the main problems of the low revenue of Indian farmers is the challenge of marketing their yields. because of small land holding the productivity is low and therefore marketing for this surplus is a problem. therefore the marketing goes through a series of exchange before it reached to the consumer from it goes from the farmer to the middleman than to the vendor. and selling the product depends on like the demand of the product at a particular time, it storage facilities etc. and the main task is to sell the product when the demand is high and therefore should be stored properly. this problem occurs because of a lack of communication that creates a problem of selling its own product. as they have no knowledge about the market they get fooled by the middleman and sell the product at a low price.
Scarcity of capital and no fixed source of income: Like all other industries, even agriculture is an important industry which requires capital. As technologies are coming the market the role of capital is becoming more important. Since the farmers’ money is secured on his lands and stocks, he is compelled to acquire money for the production. Since they have no fixed source of income they are not able to raise capital for their work.
Solution
The government is also taking initiative to solve the problems of farmers by introducing new schemes and startups which involve new technologies to solve all there problems, these schemes and the startup which a farmer can afford without having troubles:
Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY): Launched in April 2015 , the plan was to promote organic farming. By improving the soil health and organic element content so that farmers can sell it at a best value. By assembling the lands of fifty or more farmers to form 50 acre land to take organic farming.
Soil Health Card Scheme Launched in 2015, to help the farmers to issue Soil Health Cards which will provide them the information on the nutrient situation of the soil along with guidance on the proper dosage of nutrients to be used for enhancing soil strength and its productivity.
Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) started on 1st July 2015, with the slogan of ‘Har Khet Ko Paani’ was executed to solve the water problem by providing proper distribution of water to each farm.
Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana started in July 2016, initiated to fix the unpredictable nature problem due to which farmers are unsure of the reaping of their crops, to solve this they can get their crops insured where the company will pay back to cover their loss. Nt only schemes but their are startup which came with bright ideas to help agriculture process:
Crofarm: Based on the demand the company guides the farmer to harvest so that there is no wastage of food. where the farm directly buys from the farmer and sells the firm on an online basis. they even check the quality so that the consumer gets the best to eat. According to the firm, more than 10000 farmers are part of the firm.
Goldfarm: The Agri-Tech start-up, that helps the farmer to book equipment for a particular time that is required in agriculture like tractors and water pumps through a mobile app.
Ninjacart: The largest agri marketing platform solves the supply chain problem through technology, by directly connecting the farmers to the businessman which helps the farmers to get a better price.
Krishine The motto behind this startup is to club small landholding together to use modern equipment to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production. The app helps the farmer to get equipment on rent.
Conclusion
Today most of the people are directly or indirectly relying on farming. Where some are directly connected with it or some are associated with the business. Since independence, the agricultural sector has gone through a lot of transition process with ample changes in the social, legal, structural field. A lot of changes is been seen in land use pattern, cropping pattern, agricultural structure, and man more. Though the government is taking the initiative to solve the problems of the farmers by introducing scheme and startup but still somehow it is not able to solve the problem. The problem might be solved if the government forces the farmer to get literate which might help them to understand the need of technology and using it in a better way that will eventually give them a standard lifestyle.
