Feature Article

Independent India inherited a structure of landholdings characterised by heavy concentration of cultivable areas in the hands of relatively large absentee landowners, the excessive fragmentation of small landholdings, growing number of landless agricultural workers, and the lack of any generalised system of documentary evidence of landownership or tenancy.

Agriculture continues to be the predominant component of the national economy and a principal means of livelihood for two thirds of country's population living in the rural areas. Hence, it occupies central stage in the Indian economy and the Government of India places high priority on reducing poverty by raising agricultural productivity.

India's economic success has been remarkable; India's agricultural success will follow. Rural India still needs nurturing, not necessarily by just extra funding, but with vision and leadership addressing issues, with down to earth, workable solutions.

Traditionally, India was recognized as a fish-eating country, but it was only after Independence that fishery has been recognized as an important allied sector of Indian agriculture. Over ten-fold increase in fish production-from 0.75 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 8.0 million tonnes in 2009-10 amply justifies vibrancy of this sector that has been exhibited in the country during the last six decades.

When we reflect back in the past, we recollect Pandit Nehru's declaration soon after Independence in 1947, 'Everything else can wait but not Agriculture'. In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi orchestrated 'God is bread to the hungry'. This perspective of our national leadership led to the development of research institutions and the systems for technology-led agricultural growth in our country, which started with experiments in wheat and rice, and then ushered in vegetables, fruits, milk, fish, poultry, mushroom, honey, cotton, castor, soybean, maize etc., where we made good progress.

Agriculture for the Indian rural people is the way of life, a tradition, which for centuries, has shaped thought, outlook, culture and economic life of the people of the country. It is not a commodity machine but the backbone of the livelihood security system, where more than two-thirds of the population lives in the villages. So, agriculture is not just a question of economics and trade but of dignity and survival, and has a special significance for low income group, poor and vulnerable section of rural society.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s food deficits India has been requiring importation of 3 to 4 million tons of grain per year. However because of bad monsoons in 1965 and 1966, imports exploded unpwardly to 10 million tons, and India was in dire straits. It was during this period that, after three years of testing on experiment stations, the so-called high yielding Mexican wheat varieties, which had proven very interesting under experimental conditions, where considered as a possible way to break the worsening food deficit.

Let me recall the events leading to the adoption of the New strategy for Agricultural Development in India in the year 1965. After an impressive increase in agricultural production during the first two Five-Year Plans, there was a spell of stagnancy in the early 1960s. Population increased at a rapid rate, agricultural production failed to catch up, imports of foodgrains had to be stepped up and the target of self-sufficiency in foodgrains seemed elusive.

It is the peasantry that cry loudly and piteously for relief, and our programme must deal with their present condition. Real reflief can only come by a great change in the land laws and the basis of the present system of land tenure. We have among us many big landowners, and we welcome them. But they must realise that the ownership of large estates by individuals, which is the outcome of a state resembling the old feudalism of Europe, is a rapidly disappearing phenomenon all over the world.