Agriculture sector is vital for the food security of the country. It is the principal source of livelihood for more than 58% of the work-force. While the global economy had been reeling under recession and our farmers had been facing vagaries of weather, the average growth rate of agriculture sector was more than 4% during the four years preceding the last one. A record level of food-grain production of 234.47 million tonnes was achieved in the year 2008-09. The adverse impact of an unprecedented drought in Kharif, 2010 on food grain production was minimized due to timely action taken by the Central and State Governments. The severity of the drought last year can be gauged from the fact that in the last major drought during the year 2002-03, there was a deficit of 19% rainfall whereas during last year, rainfall was deficient by 23%. The corresponding production figures for wheat and rice were 71.82 (Rice) and 65.76 (Wheat) MT in 2002-03 and 89.31(Rice) and 80.98 (Wheat) in 2009-10 respectively.

In order to sustain these efforts and to keep the momentum, the Government has taken several steps to ameliorate the conditions of farmers particularly small and marginal farmers. The Government has also conceptualised several schemes for the benefit of agrarian community. Some of these initiatives and programmes/ schemes are:

Minimum Support Price /

In order to make agriculture a remunerative vocation on a sustainable basis, substantial increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of major cereals ranging from 39% to 78% was provided during the last five years (2004-05 to 2009-10). MSPs of pulses and oilseeds were enhanced by up to 104% during the same period.

Investment In Agriculture

As a result of progressive steps taken by the Government during the last 5 years in agriculture & allied sectors, public investment in Gross Capital Formation in agriculture and allied sectors has been going up. The public sector investment increased from Rs.16,183 crore to Rs.24,452 crore (at 2004-05 prices) during the period from 2004-05 to 2008-09. The total investment also saw an upward trend. The outlay under NREGS is also proposed to be used for agriculture related activities such as land development, creation of water resources and construction of rural roads.

Credit Flow And Debt Waiver

Improving access to institutional credit for farmers has been a priority for Central Government since it is a critical input necessary for improving productivity and income of the farmers. A comprehensive credit Package for agriculture sector was announced by the Government on 18th June, 2004 containing measures for increasing agriculture credit flow and provision of debt relief to the farmers affected by natural calamities. Since Kharif 2006-07, farmers are getting crop loans up to a principal amount of Rs. 3 lakh at 7% rate of interest and the Government and State Governments are providing necessary interest subvention to NABARD and Banks for this purpose. Further, from 2010-11, the Government is providing an additional interest subvention of two per cent for timely repayment. Thus, in case of timely repayment, the effective rate of interest for such farmers is now five per cent per annum.

In order to give succour to farmers stuck in debt trap, a scheme of debt waiver and debt relief for farmers was announced by the Government in the Union Budget 2008-09. The scheme has benefited about 3.68 crore of farmers with total amount of waiver and relief amounting to about Rs.65318.33 crore.

National Food Security Mission

Food security at national and at the household level is of paramount importance for the Government. With a view to enhance production of foodgrains to meet increasing demand on account of burgeoning population, National Food Security Mission (NFSM) is being implemented in 467 districts of 17 States from Rabi 2007-08 with three components viz. NFSM-Rice, NFSM-Wheat and NFSM-Pulses. An additional production of 20 million tonnes of foodgrains, comprising 10 million tonnes of rice, 8 million tonnes of wheat and 2 million tonnes of pulses by the end of Eleventh Plan (2011-12) has been targetted. More than two crore farmers have benefitted from the Scheme. The regions earlier labelled as food deficit areas, are today contributing significantly to the food basket of the country. The production of wheat, rice and pulses has increased by 4.87, 5.83 and 0.37 MT respectively from 2006-07 to 2008-09.

Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna

RKVY is a unique scheme in which the States have been given the complete autonomy of planning and implementing programmes related to agriculture and allied sectors as per their local needs. An additional central assistance of Rs.25000 crore has been earmarked for RKVY during the 11th Plan. Allocations under RKVY to various States has also been linked to increase in the total Plan expenditure in Agriculture and allied sectors in the previous year over the year prior to that year. Thus, the States are incentivised to increase public investment in these sectors. In case of natural calamities, the State Governments have full flexibility in financing immediate measures like distribution of seed mini kits, extension support, augmentation of water resources etc. under this scheme. The State Governments have been evincing keen interest in financing sectors such as food grain crops, horticulture, organic farming, animal husbandry etc. under RKVY. The scheme has also been successful in providing the critical infrastructure such as State Seed Farms, Soil and Fertilizer Testing Laboratories. RKVY has definitely given a fillip to agriculture and allied sectors.

Eastern India Initiative

The Government is determined to extend green revolution to Eastern India, namely Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Eastern UP and West Bengal. An initial allocation of Rs 400 crore has been made for this purpose. This would help in increasing crop productivity by intensive cultivation through promotion of recommended agricultural technologies & package of practices and development of missing links in agriculture infrastructure.

Pulses and Oilseeds Villages

A special initiative has been launched for Pulses and Oilseeds in Dryland Areas. This would be done by organising 60,000 pulses and oilseeds villages in identified watersheds and by providing farm machinery and equipment on custom hiring basis to service the fields of pulses and oilseeds farmers and dovetailing with other existing schemes of the Government of India having components for promotion of oilseeds and pulses production. During 2010-11, a sum of Rs.300 crore has been earmarked for the purpose.

National Horticulture Mission

The National Horticulture Mission is being implemented since the year 2005 with requisite backward and forward linkages and an end-to-end approach covering research, production, post-harvest management, processing and marketing. The mission envisages two fold increase in horticulture production by 2011-12 with a production of 300 million tonnes with 6% annual growth. Under the Mission, 367 districts in all the States and three Union Territories except eight North Eastern States, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which are benefitting under the Technology Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture in the North-Eastern States (TMNE). With the launch of NHM, 1.66 million hectares have now been brought under horticulture crop. NHM is extensively promoting green house cultivation, plastic mulching, shade net cultivation, and low tunnel cultivation. Moreover, about 0.1 million hectares area has been brought under cultivation of flowers like roses, carnation, gladiolus etc., to meet both domestic demand as well as exports. On the infrastructure aspects like cold chains, pack houses, grading and packing units, cold storages, refrigerated vans, the Government has been providing tax benefits and assistance for the capital investment made by entrepreneurs.

Extension Reforms

In order to rejuvenate and reform existing agricultural extension support system and to overcome systemic constraints being faced by the Extension machinery in the country Support to State Extension Programmes for Extension Reforms scheme is under implementation in 591 rural districts of the country. The Scheme has been recently strengthened to provide Specialist and Functionary Support at State, district, and Block levels and innovative support through a Farmer Friend (FF) at village level (one FF per 2 villages) to promote Farmer- to - Farmer learning. Around 10000 Farm Schools have already been set up. Besides this, Agriculture Clinics and Agriculture Business Centres (ACABC) scheme encourages setting up agriclinics and agribusiness centres by unemployed agriculture graduates. Under this Scheme, 21579 agricultural graduates have been trained and 7667 agri-ventures have been set up.

On the mass media front, tens of thousands of location specific agriculture related programmes are being telecast by Doordarshan Kendras and All India Radio every year. The Kisan Call Centres provides critical location specific information on real time basis to the farming community through toll-free, country-wide common number 1800-180-1551. Kisan Knowledge Management System (KKMS) is being developed to provide instant information back-up to the call centre agents while replying farmers’ queries. Over 46 lakh calls have been received up to March 2010 through 25 KCCs located across the country.

Availability Of Seeds

There has been substantial increase in availability of seeds. Production of certified/quality seeds of high yielding varieties has made a quantum jump during last few years. 279 lakh qtls. of certified/quality seeds has been made available in 2009-10, as against 250 lakh qtls. during 2008-09 and 194.31 lakh qtls. during 2007-08. Seeds Villages Scheme has been a tremendous success. 64,634 Seed Villages have been developed across the country leading to a production of 112.65 lakh quintals of seeds. On the qualitative side too, there have been significant achievements.

Continued growth of agriculture is essential to meet the food and nutritional security requirements of the people and provide livelihood and income in rural areas. The convergence of the above schemes will surely bring greater synergy to efforts for rural upliftment.