
Agriculture & its features during Economic Planning
Agriculture; as we hear this word, the first thing that comes into the mind is greenery, farms, farmers, etc. But there is more to this, agriculture can be someone’s sole mode of survival, there are people who are dependent on it to earn their livelihood. Let’s shed some light on the ‘Agriculture’ situation in the Indian Economy.
Agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy. It refers to all those processes which are related to the production of food crops and non-food crops through the exploitation of natural resources. The following are the features of agriculture during the planning period:
- Low productivity: Productivity means output per hectare of land. It was extremely low in India compared to other advanced nations in the world.
- Disguised Unemployment: It is a situation of hidden unemployment, it occurs when the number of persons engaged on a piece of land is much higher then what is actually required. This feature of Indian agriculture reflects backwardness and poverty.
- Dependence on Rainfall: Agriculture in India is highly dependent on rainfall due to a lack of irrigation facilities.
- Subsistence Farming: Subsistence means that Indian farmers are producing for their own self-consumption rather than selling the produce in the market. So, Farming in India was not commercial in nature.
- Lack of modern inputs: Modern inputs like chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and pesticides were not judiciously used due to poverty in the bulk farming population.
- Backward Technology: Most of the farms in India are small in size and farmers are poor, so the use of backward technology becomes a compulsion for them.
Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash