Presenting a grim picture of agriculture, Economic Survey 2007-08 has projected growth to decline to 2.6% in 2007-08 from 3.8% last year. It attributes the poor performance to reduced capital investment and plateauing of yields of major crops besides weather-induced productivity fluctuations.
The survey also expresses concern over the slowdown in the creation of irrigation potential, degradation of natural resources and the collapse of the farm extension system all of which contributed to below-potential crop yields.
The survey has stressed the need for a second green revolution, particularly in rainfed areas, to improve the incomes of more than half of the country’s workforce employed in the sector. "Acceleration of growth of this sector will not only push the overall GDP growth upwards, it would also make the growth more inclusive and biased in favour of women," it said.
The survey points out that public investment in agriculture has declined, and the sector has not been able to attract private investment because of lower and unattractive returns. The share of agriculture in total gross capital formation (GCF) has dropped steadily from 10.2% in 2001-02 to 5.8% in 2005-06. However, the share of GCF in agriculture relative to the agriculture sector’s gross domestic product (GDP) has shown marginal improvement from 11.1% to 12.5% during this period. The overall share of agriculture in GDP, which used to be as high as 36.4% in 1982-83, has dropped to nearly half and is reckoned at 18.5% in 2006-07.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment