Reforming Agriculture: Policy Issues and Perspectives

Abstract

Indian Agriculture has become more robust over the past few years with record production of food grains. India also prides itself of being one of the largest producers in the world of rice, wheat, milk, fruits and vegetables. Then why is India home to a large population of malnourished people? Is it because of threats like El Nino/cyclone or poor efficiency of supply chain in agricultural warehousing? The contribution of agriculture to our gross domestic product (GDP) is constantly declining (i.e. declined from 15.2 percent in 2012 to current 13.9 percent in 2013). Despite the low contribution to our GDP approximately 55% of our population is engaged in agriculture. This clearly shows a large proportion of our population sharing a very low proportion of economic wealth resulting in poor working and living conditions for a large section of Indian farmers. This is the main reason for currents shift from farm employment to non-farm sectors even in rural areas. This is also resulting in an exodus of individuals from rural areas to urban centers. The paper discusses current scenario and challenges and role of transnational corporations in Agriculture in India.

Keywords: Agriculture, Food Production

JEL Classification: O13, Q10