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07

Agriculture & Food Management

CHAPTER

The agriculture sector has experienced buoyant growth in the past two years. The sector,
which is the largest employer of workforce, accounted for a sizeable 18.8 per cent (2021-
22) in Gross Value Added (GVA) of the country registering a growth of 3.6 per cent in
2020-21 and 3.9 per cent in 2021-22. Growth in allied sectors including livestock, dairying
and fisheries has been the major drivers of overall growth in the sector.

The measures taken by the Government to augment production and domestic supply
of oilseeds and edible oils, interventions made in the sugar sector and promotion
of crop diversification are examined. The need for sustainable agriculture through
water conservation in irrigation and natural farming and need to promote research
and development to improve crop productivity, mechanization, etc. is highlighted.
It also discusses how Minimum Support Price (MSP) policy is being used to promote
crop diversification. In addition to this, some important findings of the latest Situation
Assessment Survey (SAS) have also been discussed. The net receipts from crop production
alone have increased by 22.6 per cent as compared to the previous SAS Report of 2014
although there is a visible diversification in the sources of income of the farmers.

Allied sectors including animal husbandry, dairying and fishing are steadily emerging to
be high growth sectors. The livestock sector has grown at a CAGR of 8.15 per cent over
the last five years ending 2019-20. As revealed by the latest SAS, the sector has been a
stable source of income across groups of agricultural households accounting for about 15
per cent of their average monthly income. This improvement in the contribution of allied
sectors is in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Doubling Farmers’
Income which has suggested a greater focus on allied sectors to improve farmers’ income.
A review of the allied sectors along with the recent programmes and initiatives to harness
its potential has also been presented.

The Government has placed focus on the food processing sector, which is not only a major
market of agriculture produce but is also a significant employer of the surplus workforce
engaged in agriculture. Government therefore facilitates food processing through various
measures of infrastructure development, subsidised transportation and support for
formalization of micro food enterprises.

India runs one of the largest food management programmes in the world. The Government
has further extended the coverage of food security network through additional provisions