Agricultural Productivity and Reforms. Presentation includes: 1. Agricultural Productivity- Intro 2. Statistics related to Indian Crops Productivity 3. International Comparison 4.Causes for slow growth 5. Reforms 6. Farmers Suicide 7. conclusion

1. Prepared By:
Manas Upadhyay 67
Neetish Sharma 77
Neon Dhairya Sharma 78

3. Introduction
Agriculture has historically been the most
important sector for India. Over the years, it has
faced issues, and there has been reformation by
Government policies. In this context, we will deal
with the following in this presentation:
• Agricultural productivity
• Productivity Trends
• International Comparison
• Reasons for Slow growth
• Reforms in Agriculture

4. Agricultural Productivity
• Agriculture Productivity refers to the capacity of
lands to produce.
• Measured by taking Output as a ratio to amount
of land or labour required to produce it.
• Two Aspects:
Labour Productivity :Yield per hectare of land.
Land Productivity :Yield per worker engaged.

5. Productivity Trends In Agriculture
• In India, we have almost exhausted the land under
cultivation, that’s the reason why we see slow rise in
productivity.
• From the Table:1 we can conclude some of the
relevant facts:
 Rice and wheat growth rate is plateauing. More
research efforts to boost production.
 Pulses have shown only satisfactory growth.
 Cereals have shown drastic growth, which is mainly
due to growing popularity of cereals as healthy food.
 There is some decline in Oil seeds, but still India
imports more than 50% of oil seeds.

6. Productivity Trends In Agriculture
Commodity 2000-01 2010-11 2013-14
Rice 1001 2239 2419
Wheat 2708 2989 3059
Pulses 544 691 770
Cereals 1844 2256 2429
Oil seeds 810 1193 1149

7. International Comparison of India’s
Productivity
• On comparison of yield per hectare of our
country with other countries, we observe that
India lags behind.
Table:2 (Metric tonnes per hectare)
Commodity
Rice USA (7.83) Egypt (9.8) India (2.9)
Wheat France (7.58) China (4.25) India (2.71)
Cotton China (11.10) USA (9.58) India (4.64)

8. Reasons for Low Agricultural
Productivity
• Agricultural productivity is low, on basis of
both per worker as well as per hectare of land.
• Three main reasons:
1. General Causes
2. Institutional Causes
3. Technical Causes

9. General Causes
• Social Environment:
1. Social Environment of village is an obstacle
2. Illiteracy, Superstitious
3. Lack of will to use modern technology
• Land Degradation: Continuous Cropping, water logging
and salinity reduces fertility.
• Crop Losses
• Subsistence Farming: Grow for self consumption; Shift
to commercial farming by providing incentives.
• Pressure of Population on Land:
1. High Demand
2. Fragmented land

10. Institutional Causes
• Defective Tenancy Reforms: Poor
implementation of land reforms; lack of will to
increase production as owned by big landlords.
• Size of holding: Per capita cultivable land is just
0.26 hectare; holdings are fragmented into
number of tiny plots.
• Lack of Credit: Due to Inadequate credit facility
cultivators are not able to plan their investment
in agriculture. Although now G.O.I is bringing
reforms to handle, this problem.

11. Technical Causes
• Obsolete Techniques: lack of modern
technology, HYV seeds, fertilisers, pesticides
etc.
• Lack of Irrigation facility: Dependency on
monsoon; defective management; rise in cost
of irrigation facility.
• Cropping Pattern
• Lack of Agricultural Research: Insufficient
funds, minimal part of budget expenditure for
research.

13. Measures to Reform Agriculture
1. Incentive Reforms: Many reforms have been
proposed by Ashok Gulati. Some of these are:
(A) Essential Commodities Act 1955: Law
allows to restrict the movement of agri-products
across state boundaries, impose levies on
processors, impose stocking limits. High taxes by
some govt.
(B) Agricultural Produce Marketing
Committee Act: High commission charged by
agents.
These both acts are against the farmers and hence,
shall be amended.

14. 2. Crop Insurance: Four crop insurance schemes
are under implementation to address risk
associated with weather.
3. Subsidies Reforms: Prune subsidies; focus on
rural development (better roads and
infrastructure).
4. Agri R & D Reforms: More emphasis on
research shall reduce cost and improve
productivity.
5. Plant Protection: Promote use of chemicals to
protect crops.

15. 6. Institutional Reforms:
(a) Organised Farmers
(b) Land lease markets need to be free
7. Upgradation of Technology: More focus on
modern technology shall lead to increase in
productivity.
8. Irrigation: Proper irrigation facility can help in
multiple cropping. Bharat Nirman aims at
creation of irrigation potential of 10 million
hectares.
9. Seeds: Use of HYV seeds; FDI for development
of seeds; Seeds bank in villages.

16. Farmers Suicide: A Big Problem
• During Industrial revolution, the farmers in various
nation faced the condition of extreme poverty. The
government of these countries tried to promote
agriculture by providing extensive support, from
infrastructure to subsidies. Government of India
introduced various reforms, but they had negative
implication on farmers, instead of bringing positive
results, they brought negative results.
• Farmers in India face a lot of problems. They are always
stuck in vicious cycle of debt and hence, as they are
unable to pay their debt, they commit suicide.

17. Conclusion
• Reforms in Agricultural Policy
• Technological Upgradation
• Use of HYV seeds
• Research and Development
• Increase in % of Expenditure on Agricultural
Development
• Removal of Middlemen, Commission agents
• Special Incentives to Farmers
• Availability of easy Credit Facility