Has agriculture performed better under Modi govt?

The paper, by NITI Aayog subordinate Ramesh Chand and advisor Jaspal Singh, has pointed to maturation picking up importantly thereafter, some nether the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (2004-05 to 2013-14) and the NDA authorities (2014-15 to 2023-24).

The mean year-on-year summation successful agriculture GVA (the full worth of output generated by the assemblage minus that of inputs consumed) was 3.5% during the UPA period. The past 10 years ended 2023-24 witnessed further acceleration to 3.7% (chart), belying the wide cognition of a assemblage steeped successful crisis.

Tables and Chart connected cultivation growth.

Interpreting the numbers

So, has Indian agriculture really fared good successful caller times, arsenic the supra numbers suggest? The answer: It whitethorn not beryllium that straightforward.

To commencement with, determination are questions connected the output estimates itself, particularly for the astir caller period.

Government estimates amusement accumulation of cereals, for instance, rising from 185.2 cardinal tonnes (mt) to 303.6 mt, betwixt 2004-05 and 2022-23. But household cereal consumption, estimated from the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO) data, has been virtually level astatine 153-156 mt implicit this period. The spread betwixt officially reported cereal accumulation and household depletion has widened from a specified 29.5 mt successful 2004-05 to 84 mt successful 2011-12 and 151 mt successful 2022-23.

Similar doubts person been raised connected a two-and-a-half times leap successful the country’s estimated beverage accumulation (from 92.5 mt successful 2004-05 to 230.6 mt successful 2022-23), with no commensurate summation successful consumption arsenic per the NSSO’s household surveys.

But these incongruities notwithstanding, the NITI paper, published successful the Economic & Political Weekly (September 28), has immoderate cardinal findings with implications for policymaking and helping place pockets of excellence arsenic good arsenic symptom points successful Indian agriculture.

Disaggregated divergence

The archetypal is the ample saltation successful show of the antithetic subsectors wrong agriculture.

The crops subsector – which 1 usually associates with farming – recorded lone 2.3% mean yearly maturation successful output worth (at 2011-12 prices to set for inflation) from 2014-15 to 2022-23. That was, successful fact, little than the 3.4% during the 10 years of UPA rule.

On the different hand, the livestock and fisheries subsectors posted mean year-on-year accumulation maturation of 5.8% and 9.2% respectively from 2014-15 to 2022-23, higher than their corresponding rates of 4.5% and 4.3% for the 10 years ended 2013-14.

Simply put, the workplace sector’s wide amended maturation show during the Modi-led NDA compared to that nether UPA has been chiefly courtesy of carnal and aqua arsenic opposed to accepted harvest agriculture.

Table 1 gives a further break-up of subsector accumulation maturation (i.e. successful the worth of output astatine changeless prices) during the NDA period. The highest mean yearly maturation rates person travel from poultry nutrient (9.2%), sportfishing & aquaculture (9.1%), eggs (6.6%) and beverage (5.8%). Even wrong crops, horticulture output has grown astatine a comparatively awesome 3.9% per annum.

It is non-horticulture, i.e. regular tract crops, that has experienced meagre maturation of conscionable implicit 1.6%. The existent laggards person been cotton, jute, tobacco, beverage and coffee, with the maturation rates being mean successful cereals and oilseeds to decent successful pulses and sugarcane.

Table 2 shows 13 states whose yearly agriculture maturation during 2014-15 to 2022-23 has averaged 4% oregon more. Three notable absentees present are Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal. The mean year-on-year emergence successful their GVA from agriculture for this play was lone 2%, 3.4% and 2.8%, with these from crops being adjacent little astatine 0.5%, 0.7% and 1.9% respectively.

The maturation successful the 13 states, successful turn, been mostly powered by livestock and fisheries. The harvest subsector’s maturation has topped 5% lone for 2 states: Madhya Pradesh and Telangana.

Policy takeaways

It links up with the 2nd large finding.

The accelerated cultivation maturation during the past 2 decades, a effect of diversification towards horticulture crops, livestock and fisheries, has besides been market-led – driven by the increasing request for vegetables, fruits, milk, meat, eggs and fish.

Thus, diversification successful farms has been accompanied by fare diversification successful plates, with a displacement successful the creation of household depletion expenditures from foods fundamentally delivering calories to those rich successful proteins and micronutrients. This has been additionally enabled by caller technologies, beryllium it hybrids successful vegetables and maize (a captious livestock and poultry provender ingredient), drip irrigation and high-density insubstantial civilization planting successful bananas, oregon high-yielding broiler and furniture breeds successful poultry.

But arsenic Chand and Singh note, not each Indian farmers prosecute successful livestock, fisheries and horticulture activities. According to the NSSO’s 2018-19 Situation Assessment Survey for Agricultural Households, lone 53% of them derived income from livestock rearing and conscionable 6.5% cultivated horticulture crops.

The main earning root for 44.2% of cultivation households was from farming of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, sugarcane, fabric and different non-horticulture crops. Some of these person seen decent accumulation growth, connected the backmost of rising request (oilseeds and pulses) oregon non-food usage (sugarcane for ethanol production).

However, the benefits of diversification and caller accumulation technologies person not percolated to tract crops the mode they person for horticulture oregon livestock. Oilseeds and pulses yields stay low, starring to a important stock of request being met by imports. In cotton, determination has nary breakthrough aft genetically modified Bt hybrids: India’s mean home accumulation of 325 lakh bales successful the past 3 years is beneath the 370-400 lakh bales reached during 2012-13 to 2014-15!

The crops subsector showing debased maturation contempt this conception – peculiarly atom and wheat – being covered nether the minimum enactment price authorities lone highlights the value of demand-side factors. These, on with improvements successful accumulation technology, are much effectual successful promoting cultivation maturation than authorities output terms oregon input subsidy interventions, the NITI Aayog insubstantial has concluded.