Agricultural Resources Information System (AgRIS): An e ...

ise in prices and ensures food and nutrition security at
affordable prices. In India, from the Fourth Plan onwards,
“removal of poverty” became the central concern and thus rural
development and poverty alleviation came to be recognized as
synonymous. The strategies and policies adopted two approaches,
which do not mutually contradict but reinforce each other,
focusing on:
∗ Overall economic development (through percolation/ trickle down/
spread effect)
∗ Poverty Alleviation (beneficiary targeted direct intervention)
programmes (PAPs)
Even then, the strategies of Poverty Alleviation Programmes
(PAPs) failed due to the “top-down” and “over determined”
approach.
1.4 But to her credit, India marched forward “from inadequate
imports to abundant exports”, “from fragile farming to food
for security”, and “from brittle tools to Biodiversity and Eco-
friendly equipment”. With more than 250 million people still
employed in agriculture, representing around two-thirds of
India's entire labor force, it is clear that an expanding non-farm
sector that exerts upward pressure on agricultural wages, may
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