Agriculture: A gate of inclusive growth

Agriculture plays a very important role in the life of an economy. It is the backbone of Indian economic system. Agriculture not only provides raw material and food but also employment opportunities to a very large proportion of population. Despite a strong growth linkage between agriculture and other economic sectors agriculture has not received the required attention during the five year plans period. The ignorance of agriculture and rapid growth of non-agriculture sectors has led to serious agrarian crisis and increased disparity between urban and rural incomes. There has been some revival in the recent period as agricultural GDP growth accelerated to about 3.6 per cent during 2007–08 to 2010–11 but is still below the 4.0 per cent target for the Eleventh Plan. Many factors have contributed to the slowdown in agricultural growth: inadequacies of outlay on agriculture, rural infrastructure (on which agricultural growth depends), increased competition for resources from other sectors/programmes such as rural development and poverty alleviation, and subsidies; lack of long-term government commitment required for agricultural development.