Question

Explain any four problems of the Indian agriculture.

Answer 1

Seeds:

Seed is a critical and basic input for attaining higher crop yields and sustained growth in agricultural production. Distribution of assured quality seed is as critical as the production of such seeds. Unfortunately, good quality seeds are out of reach of the majority of farmers, especially small and marginal farmers mainly because of exorbitant prices of better seeds.

In order to solve this problem, the Government of India established the National Seeds Corporation (NSC) in 1963 and the State Farmers Corporation of India (SFCI) in 1969. Thirteen State Seed Corporations (SSCs) were also established to augment the supply of improved seeds to the farmers.

High Yielding Variety Programme (HYVP) was launched in 1966-67 as a major thrust plan to increase the production of food grains in the country.

Irrigation:

Although India is the second-largest irrigated country of the world after China, only one-third of the cropped area is under irrigation. Irrigation is the most important agricultural input in a tropical monsoon country like India where rainfall is uncertain, unreliable and erratic India cannot achieve sustained progress in agriculture unless and until more than half of the cropped area is brought under assured irrigation.

This is testified by the success story of agricultural progress in Punjab Haryana and western part of Uttar Pradesh where over half of the cropped area is under irrigation! Large tracts still await irrigation to boost the agricultural output.

Lack of mechanisation:

In spite of the large scale mechanisation of agriculture in some parts of the country, most of the agricultural operations in larger parts are carried on by human hand using simple and conventional tools and implements like a wooden plough, sickle, etc.

Little or no use of machines is made in ploughing, sowing, irrigating, thinning and pruning, weeding, harvesting threshing and transporting the crops. This is especially the case with small and marginal farmers. It results in huge wastage of human labour and in low yields per capita labour force.

There is an urgent need to mechanise the agricultural operations so that wastage of labour force is avoided and farming is made convenient and efficient. Agricultural implements and machinery are a crucial input for efficient and timely agricultural operations, facilitating multiple cropping and thereby increasing production.

Inadequate transport:

One of the main handicaps with Indian agriculture is the lack of cheap and efficient means of transportation. Even at present, there are lakhs of villages which are not well connected with main roads or with market centres.

Most roads in the rural areas are Kutcha (bullock- cart roads) and become useless in the rainy season. Under these circumstances, the farmers cannot carry their produce to the main market and are forced to sell it in the local market at a low price. Linking each village by metalled road is a gigantic task and it needs huge sums of money to complete this task.

Soil erosion:

Large tracts of fertile land suffer from soil erosion by wind and water. This area must be properly treated and restored to its original fertility.