Odisha like many other states of the country is predominantly agrarian with almost 70 percent population dependent on agriculture. Like the growth and development story everywhere, due to higher growth rate in the industries and services the share of agriculture Sector in the State’s GSDP has been declining in the state. The share of this Sector in Odisha’s GSDP was 15.4 percent as per the advance estimate in 2014-15. The state and the agriculture sector suffers from frequent natural shocks like cyclones, droughts and flash floods affecting the growth trend. Notwithstanding the innumerable challenges including climatic variations, the state’s Despite wide annual variations in its growth, the Agriculture sector has been growing in the range of 2 to 11 per cent annually during 2005-2011, compared to 1-8.6 per cent at the country level. There was a negative growth during 2013-14 mainly caused by cyclonic storm Phailin and flash floods in the State in October 2013. The state generally rich with natural resources with rivers like Mahanadi, Bramhani and others besides diversified wild life, forest and mineral resources are found in abundant and which are very essential for growth and development of the state. The general infrastructure status in the state is moderate for growth and development. Odisha state has about 4.7 per cent of the country’s geographical area and has but only 3.14 per cent of the net sown area share in the country’s net sown area of 140 m ha (Table.1). The state has a lower share of its area under agriculture (28%) compared the country’s level of 43 per cent. The state 4.67 million land holdings owning about 4.8 m ha area. As is the situation at the national level the share of marginal and small farmers to the tune of 92 per cent owning about 71 per cent of the agricultural land (Table.2). The average land holding size of the farmers of Odisha was 1.04 ha, slightly lower than the country’s average of 1.17 (http://agcensus.dacnet.nic.in).
