Question

What is the importance of Agriculture in India?

Answer 1

India is an agricultural country. The Indian economy is basically agrarian. In spite of economic development and industrialization, agriculture is the backbone of the Indian economy. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “India lives in villages and agriculture is the soul of Indian economy”. Nearly two-thirds of its population depends directly on agriculture for its livelihood. Agriculture is the main stay of India’s economy. It contributes about 26 percent of the gross domestic product. Agriculture meets food requirements of the people and produces several raw materials for industries.
From agricultural point of view, India is a unique country. It has vast expanse of level land, rich soils, wild climatic variations suited for various types of crops, ample sunshine and a long growing season. The net sown area in India today is about 143 million hectares. India has the highest percentage of land under cultivation in the world. In spite of the fact that large areas in India, after independence, have been brought under irrigation, only one-third of the cropped area is actually irrigated. The productivity of agriculture is very low. Farming depends mainly upon monsoon rain. Most of the production comprises food crops. About one-third of the land holdings are small, less than one hectare in size. Farmers own their own small prices of land and grow crops primarily for consumption. Even storage facilities for crops are inadequate. Now use of pesticides and fertilizers has increased and large areas have been brought under high yielding variety of seeds. This led to green revolution in several parts of India. This has helped in increasing yields per hectare as well as total production of different crops.