CII Communique - February, 2010

sectoral synergies
agriculture
Towards
4% Growth in Agriculture
Although India's remarkable economic growth in
recent years has been fueled by the booming
services and industrial sector, Agriculture
continues to remain the mainstay of the economy
from the employment and livelihood perspective. The
contribution of Agriculture to the Indian GDP has gone
down considerably in the last few years, but it continues
to be the largest sector in the country, employing 58%
of the population.
One of the key concerns facing both policymakers as
well as industry is the stagnation in Indian Agriculture.
While the sector had registered an average compound
growth rate of 3.5% in the Green Revolution years, it
declined to around 2 % in the late 1990s and has almost
stagnated thereafter. As per the National Agricultural
Policy declaration, a 4 per cent rate of growth in
agriculture is a necessary concomitant of 10% per cent
GDP growth.
A large part of the debate on Indian agriculture is
related to food security concerns. There has been
marginal growth in the total area under cultivation
in the food grains sector and overall food grains
production is stagnating at around 200 million tonnes,
leading to short run demand-supply imbalances in food
grains availability, inflation and corresponding distorting
pressures on policy.
The continuing rise in the prices of major food
commodities such as grains, pulses and oilseeds, is a
cause for concern. Food prices are also a result of the
demand-supply imbalance. A slowdown in the growth
of production and more rapid growth in demand in
India has contributed to constrained supply of grains
and oilseeds over the last decade. There is no greater
challenge facing us than the challenge of providing every
person with sufficient food to meet his / her requirement
without any adverse impact on the ecological system
and mankind, now and in the future.
To ensure that food security and agriculture grows at
a sustained 4% growth rate, Confederation of Indian
Industry suggests the following areas of interventions:
Seeds
Seed has an important role to play in improving the
agriculture productivity of our country. It was high
yielding varieties seeds that laid the foundation for the
Green Revolution in 1967. Hence, to pave the way for
a second Green Revolution in Agriculture, seeds again
need the attention of the Government. In the last couple
of decades, the private sector has played a key role in
developing hybrid seeds in key crops like corn, cotton,
and vegetables, as a result of which there have been
substantial gains in production. India has become the
world’s second largest producer of vegetables with the
production level of 84 million tonnes; cotton production
in India has touched 290 lakh bales during 2009, a
surge by 5% as compared to the previous financial
year. Appropriate policy support has potential to bring
innovative technologies in self-pollinated crops like
wheat, pulses and oilseeds to improve the productivity
and much-needed food availability. For this, Government
needs to take proactive policy measures. These are:
• Regulatory system and support for conducting seed
and biotech research required, with clarity around the
process for all stakeholders.
• The pending National Seed Bill 2004 should be
passed on high priority. To address issues like making
the registration of cultivars obligatory, creating a National
Register of Seeds, regulating the import and export of
24 | February 2010 Communiqué