Indian Agriculture - Farmer Problems!

India is an Agrarian country & soil is its prime resource. It plays a vital role in the
economy of India as our industries are mainly Agro-based. About 65 to 70% of the
total population of the country is depended on agriculture.

We must remember that farming is indeed a tough job with earnings that hardly
measure up to the hard work and toil involved. In fact, annual earnings of a 3-acre
farmer are much lower than an IT sector or corporate newbie.

India has a varied geological, climate and vegetation, which gives it different soil
types.
India is on the verge of a looming soil crisis that can potentially impact its
agriculture in the near future. A third or 120 million hectares of soil of the total 350
million hectares has already turned problematic.

The reasons for the declining health of the soil is that they are either acidic, saline,
sodic or alkaline soils. The net result is the poor health can have a big impact on
agriculture productivity, sustainability and also on human health. For India, which
has over 17 per cent of the world population with limited land resources, the
current situation warrants immediate attention.

Today food production is just not the trigger for an agricultural crisis. Global and
local market volatility is the current bane. Global explosion in food grain
production has changed the market dynamics leading to pressure prices on our
produce.

Making matters worse, farmers bear the entire risk in the farm to market cycle. Be
it outbreak of pests at production or losses in storage & transport or price
uncertainty while marketing, the risk is not distributed evenly amongst other
stakeholders like grain traders, aggregators or processors.
Being an agricultural nation, our farmers deserve considerably more. Indian
farmers require long term sustainable solutions instead of short term rhetorical
promises and reactive concessions.

60% of the Indian population depends on agriculture for livelihood while

contribution to the national GDP through agriculture is only 14-15%. Clearly
this is a recipe for unsustainable development. Less than 1% of the agricultural
GDP in India is spent on research.

There is a staggering lack of infrastructure across the entire agricultural value

chain. The farmer is not equipped with the latest technology nor trained to adopt it
fast. A policy framework that promotes structured, direct linkages between
professional aggregators, food chain collaborators, food processors, will reduce
uncertainties drastically.

Our Prime Minister also pledged to double farmers' incomes by 2022 and this
certainly makes for a rosy picture. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Soil health
cards, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana and National Agriculture Market
(eNAM) are some agro-centric initiatives by the government which are paving a
long way to help the farmers.

A revolution of the Indian agricultural sector is what the country is calling out for
today. Agricultural policies would do well to address the need to make
agriculture efficient and less burdened.