MUMBAI: The last five years have been bad for Indian agriculture. For the period 1999-2004, the growth in average foodgrain production has declined to 3.7%. Average annual foodgrain production during the last five years was 200,567 thousand tonnes, compared with 193,442 thousand tonnes during the previous five-year period (1994-98).
This is the second time since 1950 that agricultural production, averaged over five years, has clocked lower than double-digit growth. The last time this happened was during 1965-69, which was marked by two severe droughts.
The biggest reason for this slowdown in growth seems to be a shortfall in monsoon rainfall. For the period June to September, the usual monsoon months in India, the average rainfall over the last five years has been as much as 12% lower than normal.
While the actual rainfall over these months stood at 741.4 mm, the normal rainfall is 844 mm. This is also the sharpest shortfall in rainfall during the monsoon months since 1951. Even during 1965-69, average rainfall during the monsoon months was only 7.7% lower than normal.
In order to arrive at the five-year growth rates, the five-year production of foodgrain was considered. It was then averaged, and the growth rate was computed on the basis of the average production during the five-year periods starting from 1955. The same methodology was applied while determining rainfall trends.
These calculations further show that for rabi crops, the growth rate has declined from a high of 20% in 1994-98. However, it is interesting to note that kharif production was growing at an even lower rate of 2.2% over the previous five-year period. This suggests that there could be other factors at work for lowering of the foodgrain growth rate.
Experts suggest that some of the other reasons are related to a slowdown in capital formation in agriculture as well as crop diversification. Gross capital formation (GCF) in agriculture as a percentage of GDP is down from 3.4% in 1980-81 to 1.5% at present. As a result, a lot of created capacity cannot be sustained.
A large part of this capacity goes into sustaining irrigation systems. With a dwindling of public investment in the sector, irrigation systems cannot be maintained. If the existing systems are not maintained, when the country gets historically low rains, there is bound to be a fall in foodgrain production.
Also, the recent past has seen a rise in crop diversification, with a greater number of farmers than ever before going in for horticulture. The area under horticulture has risen from 56 lakh hectares in the beginning of 1990s to about 62 lakh hectares at present.
On the other hand, the area under kharif foodgrains is down from about 807 lakh hectares to about 750 lakh hectares, while the area under rabi foodgrains has declined from 470 lakh hectares to 445 lakh hectares.