Introduction
Agriculture continues to play an important role in the Indian economy despite its share in the total GDP has declined over time. At the time of independence, the share of agriculture in total GDP was more than 55 per cent and about 70 per cent of the population was dependent on the agriculture sector for their livelihood. Though, the share of agriculture in GDP has steeply declined to around 15 per cent, it continued to engage a large number of workers on the sector for employment, which further compounds the problem of low productivity in agriculture. Traditionally, India’s agriculture development was based on protected policy environment, which included controls on market, pricing, trade, storage, transport, and quantitative restrictions on foreign trade. The policy was primarily intended to attain long term food security and stabilize agricultural prices. During 1970s huge public investments were made on for creating basic agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation facilities coupled with research and extension to augment food production by increasing cropped area and productivity.
India has experienced remarkable growth in production of various agricultural commodities over the last four decades. Major changes in agricultural production took place in mid-1960s with introduction of Green Revolution Technologies. The “Green Revolution” technology initially introduced in resource endowed areas in late 1960s spread into other parts of the country during 1980s. The agriculture sector observed spectacular growth of over 4 per cent per annum during 1980-81 to 1989-90. However, this growth rate did not continue during 1990s due to several reasons including slowdown in public investment, low yield growth, declining water table and environmental problems, which has led to poor performance of agriculture. Clearly, a series of interventions are urgently required in Agriculture and Allied Sectors to sustain India’s inclusive growth in general and U.P.’s transformation in particular.
Many argue that deceleration of agricultural growth is because of multi-dimensional factors, broadly related to technology and policy fatigues. Therefore, the country should adopt dual approach to transform the economy through agricultural sector reforms by focusing the technological development on the one hand and policy reforms to make facilitate the sector on the other. A central issue in Agricultural Policy Reforms is the necessity to increase productivity, employment, and income of poor segments of the agricultural population.
Objective and Format of the Convention...
Objective of the Convention is to evolve an actionable policy framework for some of the key interventions for transforming the state economy through agricultural sector development. Deliberations in the convention will be through presentations by distinguished panel of domain experts for their originality and action orientation. Accepted papers shall be published in the LMA Journal dedicated to the theme. While the deliberations will be generic, the focus will inevitably be on policy prescriptions for Uttar Pradesh.
Introduction
Agriculture continues to play an important role in the Indian economy despite its share in the total GDP has declined over time. At the time of independence, the share of agriculture in total GDP was more than 55 per cent and about 70 per cent of the population was dependent on the agriculture sector for their livelihood. Though, the share of agriculture in GDP has steeply declined to around 15 per cent, it continued to engage a large number of workers on the sector for employment, which further compounds the problem of low productivity in agriculture. Traditionally, India’s agriculture development was based on protected policy environment, which included controls on market, pricing, trade, storage, transport, and quantitative restrictions on foreign trade. The policy was primarily intended to attain long term food security and stabilize agricultural prices. During 1970s huge public investments were made on for creating basic agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation facilities coupled with research and extension to augment food production by increasing cropped area and productivity.
India has experienced remarkable growth in production of various agricultural commodities over the last four decades. Major changes in agricultural production took place in mid-1960s with introduction of Green Revolution Technologies. The “Green Revolution” technology initially introduced in resource endowed areas in late 1960s spread into other parts of the country during 1980s. The agriculture sector observed spectacular growth of over 4 per cent per annum during 1980-81 to 1989-90. However, this growth rate did not continue during 1990s due to several reasons including slowdown in public investment, low yield growth, declining water table and environmental problems, which has led to poor performance of agriculture. Clearly, a series of interventions are urgently required in Agriculture and Allied Sectors to sustain India’s inclusive growth in general and U.P.’s transformation in particular.
Many argue that deceleration of agricultural growth is because of multi-dimensional factors, broadly related to technology and policy fatigues. Therefore, the country should adopt dual approach to transform the economy through agricultural sector reforms by focusing the technological development on the one hand and policy reforms to make facilitate the sector on the other. A central issue in Agricultural Policy Reforms is the necessity to increase productivity, employment, and income of poor segments of the agricultural population.
Objective and Format of the Convention...
Objective of the Convention is to evolve an actionable policy framework for some of the key interventions for transforming the state economy through agricultural sector development. Deliberations in the convention will be through presentations by distinguished panel of domain experts for their originality and action orientation. Accepted papers shall be published in the LMA Journal dedicated to the theme. While the deliberations will be generic, the focus will inevitably be on policy prescriptions for Uttar Pradesh.