India: Govt plans to assist farmers in increasing boost productivity
India: Govt plans to assist farmers in increasing boost productivity

India: The Indian government is putting a lot of effort into developing the agriculture industry by aiding local cooperatives. To achieve prosperity through cooperation, it established a separate Ministry of Cooperation in 2021. The project aims to boost the nation’s cooperative movement. The country has been able to overcome the urban-rural divide, enhance women’s involvement, educate farmers, train rural youth, and spread digital solutions as well as facilities to the last mile thanks to this cooperative movement.

For a nation that hopes to have a $5 trillion economy by 2025, an emphasis on empowering and helping farmers is essential. An enhanced emphasis has been placed on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries, with the agricultural loan objective being raised to Rs 20 lakh crore to significantly increase farmers’ income, especially the small ones.

Moreover, Rs 450 crore and roughly Rs 600 crore have been set aside for the Digital Agricultural Mission and the development of agriculture through technology, respectively NewsonAir.

Over 58% of India’s population relies on agriculture as their main source of income, making India one of the leading players in the global agriculture industry. India is regarded as the world’s largest producer of milk, spices and pulses. It also has the largest herd of cattle (buffaloes) and the largest area planted for wheat, rice, and cotton.

It is the second-largest producer of wheat, cotton, rice, sugar, farmed fish, fruit, tea, and vegetables, farmed vegetables. Around half of the population of India is employed in agriculture, which has the second-largest agricultural land area in the world. In order to provide us with food, farmers thus become a crucial component of the sector, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation.

The strong development rates of the service, manufacturing and other sectors may have caused a progressive reduction in agriculture’s proportion of the Indian economy, but agriculture’s enormous significance in India’s economic and social structure goes far beyond these measures.

The financial allocation for the sector, which was less than 25,000 crores in the year 2014 and has climbed five times to more than 1,25,000 crores today, indicates the seriousness of the situation. For India’s ambitious PM-Kisan programme, 60,000 crore rupees have been set aside.

Similar to how small farmers have profited significantly from the Kisan Credit Card, Rs 23,000 crores have been set aside for it. It is also regrettable that India continues to spend close to 2 lakh crore on agricultural imports. Pulses cost Rs 17,000 crores to import in 2021–2022, while value-added food products cost Rs 25,000 crores, and edible oils cost Rs 1.5 lakh crores to buy in the same period. When it comes to self-sufficiency or export, India should obviously not restrict its goal to rice or wheat and instead must vigorously make attempts to go after the items that the nation imports regularly.

By 2025, Inc42 projects that the Indian agricultural sector will grow to a value of US$24 billion. The sixth-largest food and grocery market in the world is in India, with 70% of sales coming through retail. According to the First Advance Estimates for FY 2022–23 (Kharif alone), the nation’s total production of food grains is predicted to be 149.92 million tonnes. India’s rapidly growing population is the primary element influencing the sector.

This is further supported by the increasing income levels in rural and urban areas, which have boosted the demand for agricultural products across the country. Therefore, the market is being pushed by the rising use of innovative technologies, including blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), geographic information systems (GIS), drones, and remote sensing technologies, as well as the introduction of a variety of farming applications.

Given the potential of the industry, India currently has more than 3,000 agri-startups, and that number is growing quickly. As a result, monies for accelerator programmes have also been granted to agri-tech firms. The year being designated as the International Year of Millets, the new revolution occurring in the cooperative sector, and programmes like the PM Pranam Yojana and Gobardhan Yojana to support natural farming all hold great promise for the farmers.