Indian Agriculture

Indian farming goes back to the time of the Indus Valley Civilization. India has the second most farm products in the world. As of 2018, more than half of the people who worked in India were in agriculture, which made up 17–18 percent of the country’s GDP.

In 2016, 17.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) came from agriculture and related fields like animal husbandry, forestry, and fisheries. In 2020, about 41.49 percent of the workforce will work in these fields. India has the most net cropped area in the world. The US and China are next on the list. Agriculture’s share of India’s GDP is steadily going down as the country’s economy grows in many different ways. Still, agriculture is the largest economic sector in terms of population, and it plays a big role in India’s overall social and economic structure.

Characteristics of Indian Agriculture

Agriculture is very important in India because it helps people make a living, makes sure there is enough food, reduces poverty, and keeps growth going.

1. Subsistent in Character

2. Heavy Pressure of Population

3. Predominance of Food Grains

4. Crops of many kinds

5. A lot of the reporting area is being used for farming

6. The small size of holdings and the way fields are broken up

7. Farming that isn’t as intensive

8. Technology in the Stone Age

9. Indian agriculture takes a lot of work.

10. Rain-fed Agriculture

11. Less land will be used to grow legumes and feed crops.

12. Tradition Bound

13. Low Productivity

14. Government Policy

15. No Clear Plan for Using Agricultural Land

Features of Indian Agriculture

1. Subsistence agriculture: Most of India depends on farming to make a living. The farmer has a small plot of land where he grows crops with the help of his family. He and his family eat almost all of the crops, so there isn’t much extra to sell at the market.

2. Pressure of population on agriculture: The number of people living in India is growing quickly, which puts a lot of stress on agriculture. Agriculture has to provide jobs for a large part of the workforce and feed millions of people. When we look at how much food grains we need now, we need an extra 12–15 million hectares of land to meet the growing demand by 2010 A.D. Also, the number of people living in cities is growing.

3. Importance of animals: Animal power has always been an important part of farming tasks like ploughing, watering, threshing, and moving crops from one place to another. Complete mechanisation of Indian agriculture is still a long way off, and for the next few years, animals will still be the most important part of Indian agriculture.

4. Dependent upon Monsoon: Most of India’s farming depends on the monsoon, which is unpredictable, unreliable, and unpredictable. Even though irrigation facilities have grown a lot since India got its independence, only one-third of the cropped area has permanent irrigation. The other two-thirds of the cropped area has to deal with the monsoons.

5. A wide range of crops: India is a big country with many different types of terrain, climate, and soil. India grows a lot of different crops because of this. India is a good place to grow both tropical and temperate crops. India is one of the few places in the world that grows as many different kinds of crops as it does.

6. Most crops are food crops: Since Indian agriculture needs to feed a large population, growing food crops is almost always the first thing farmers do. More than two-thirds of the land that is used to grow crops is used to grow food. But because of a change in the way crops were grown, the share of food crops dropped from 76.7% in 1950–51 to 58.8% in 2002–03.

Challenges of Indian Agriculture

• Instability: A lot of India’s farming depends on the monsoon. Because of this, the amount of food grains produced changes from year to year. A year when there are a lot of cereals on the market is often followed by a year when there aren’t enough.

• Cropping Pattern: Food crops and non-food crops are the two main types of crops that are grown in India. The first group is made up of food grains, sugarcane, and other drinks. The second group is made up of different kinds of fibres and oilseeds.

• Land Ownership: Agricultural land in India is owned by a lot of different people, but there is some concentration of land holdings. India’s land ownership changes a lot, which is another reason why people don’t get the same amount of land. People think that only a small number of rich farmers, landlords, and moneylenders in India own large amounts of land, while the vast majority of farmers own very little land or none at all.

• Land Tenure: India’s system for owning land is also not perfect. Before the country got its independence, most renters didn’t feel safe in their homes. They might be kicked out at any time. But after independence, different steps have been taken to make sure that tenants are safe.

• Conditions of Agricultural Labourers: Most agricultural workers in India don’t have good living conditions. There is also the problem of unemployed people who are not really unemployed. This drops the wages below the level needed to live.

• Irrigation: India is the second most irrigated country in the world, after China, but only a third of the farmland is irrigated. In a tropical monsoon country like India, where rain is unpredictable, unreliable, and erratic, irrigation is the most important part of farming. India won’t be able to make steady progress in agriculture until more than half of the land that is used to grow crops is sure to get water.

• Agricultural Marketing: Rural India’s agricultural marketing is still in bad shape. Farmers can’t sell their farm products on their own because there aren’t good ways to do so. Instead, they have to rely on local traders and middlemen, who sell the products at a very low price.

• Poor transportation: One of the biggest problems with Indian agriculture is that there aren’t enough cheap and fast ways to move goods. Even now, there are millions of villages that don’t have good connections to main roads or market centres.

Conclusion

About 17–18 percent of the GDP comes from agriculture. The way crops are grown has a big effect on the economy. More than half of the people who live in India are directly supported by agriculture. So, India’s agricultural production has a lot to do with how many jobs are available.