Causes for low productivity in Agriculture and Measures to Improve

causes for low productivity in agricultural and Measures to Improve

1. UNIT -5 Agriculture sector

2. Causes for Low Productivity in Agriculture General Causes i)Social Environment ii) Population Pressure on Land iii) Land degradation iv)Inadequate Infrastructure B) Institutional Causes i)Land Tenure System Ii)Size of Holdings iii) Lack of Infrastructure iv)Deficiency of Investment C] Technical Causes i)Poor Techniques of Production ii)Inadequate Irrigation iii)Environmental degradation

3. A) General Causes 1)Social Environment The Social Environment of villages is an obstacle in agricultural development. Majority of Indian farmers are illiterates, superstitions , conservative and non-responsive to new agricultural techniques. But this situations is being in transformation and slowly more and more farmers are adopting new techniques/technology of agriculture.

4. Ii)Population Pressure on Land : Population pressure is heavy on land. As non-agricultural sector is not absorbing the total workers, the pressure on land is increasing continuously. In 2011, out of 349 million rural working population,263 million workers were employed in agriculture sector. Increasing population pressure on land is partly responsible for subdivision and fragmentation of holding .Productivity in small uneconomic land holdings is low

5. iii) Land Degradatio n: N early half of the country’s land (329 million hectares) is degraded.43% of the suffers from high degradation resulting in 33-67 percent yield loss. 5% of the land is so damaged that it is unusual. Soil degradation is one of the major causes for low agriculture productivity in the country.

6. iv) Inadequate Infrastructure : Inadequate infrastructure facilities- such as roads, communication, marketing, credit ,power and drainage-will lead low agriculture productivity. Various state governments have taken many steps in this regard and the situation is becoming better day by day.

7. B)Institutional Causes Land Tenure system : Highly exploitative Zamindari /Jagirdari system out the capacity, willingness and enthusiasm of the farmers to increase production and productivity. Abolition of intermediaries took pace during first five year plan but big landlord- tenant system still exits which is one of the causes for low productivity.

8. ii) Size of Holdings: The average size of land holding in India is very low. In 2010-11, 85% of total land holding had a size of less than 2 acres. So, the cultivation on them can be done by lobour intensive techniques, and scientific cultivation with improved implements ,seeds etc, may not be possible. The existence of uneconomic land holding is also the cause for low agricultural yield.

9. iii)Lack of Entrepreneurship: Agricultural sector is devoid of all entrepreneurship and competition in their agricultural operations. All the developed nations have the enterprise system

10. C) Technical Causes i)Poor Techniques of Production: Most of the Indian farmers are using outdated production techniques. Use of fertilizers and new high yielding varieties of seeds is also limited. Still , Indian agriculture is traditional and therefore productivity is low. Inadequate availability and high cost of modern inputs are also contributing to low productivity. Inadequate and poor post-harvest technology is also a problem.

11. ii) Inadequate Irrigation : by the year 2019-20,India could able to provide irrigation facility only to 45 per cent of total cropped area. Lack of irrigation facility is major cause of low agriculture productivity in India. The management of existing irrigation facilities also not up to the mark

12. iii)Environmental Degradation: Environmental degradation like soil erosion, ground water depletion etc., also contribute for low yield in agricultural. Unlearned application of fertilizers, pesticides along with others pollutants are responsible for this this environmental degration.

13. Measures to Improve Agricultural Productivity in India: Increase Irrigation Facilities Improving the Returns to the Farmers Institutional Reforms/arrangements Farmer Education

14. 1) Institutional Reforms/arrangements Land reforms, though initiated in First Five Year Plan, largely limited to abolition of intermediaries. Tenancy reforms, identification of surplus land, distribution of surplus land to poor and needy were not done adequately. Institutional arrangement for agricultural financing is neither adequate nor timely till date. Timely distribution of agricultural inputs like quality seeds, fertilizers will improve the situation. Adequate warehousing facilities are to be provided. Marketing process of agriculture products should become convenient and remunerative.

15. 2)Increase Irrigation Facilities Irrigation infrastructure a must to increase the agriculture productivity as irrigation facilities nearly three-fold increase in agriculture productivity per annum and per hectare. Irrigation along with improvement in power supply largely contributes to increase in productivity.

16. 3) Improving the Returns to Farmers For this, both price measures and non-price measures have to be implemented. Raising minimum support prices for the crops, giving necessary subsidies for agriculture inputs, providing crop insurance facility, reducing the population pressure on land by increasing non-farm economic activities and introducing managerial concepts in agriculture definitely help to increase agriculture productivity.

17. 4)Farmer Education Farmers have to be educated to utilize their resources in an optimum manner. Education of an integrated and efficient management of land and water resources is needed to avoid the problem of land degradation. Education supplements better skilled managements for raising the level of productivity. Better agricultural research for soil testing and conservations is needed. Suitable agro-climatic regional planning is also required to increase the agriculture productivity in India.