Question

Why has agriculture's share in indian economy decreased over the years?

Answer 1

Heya....

@ Agricultural shares over last year's are declining because .....

** Still farmers are facing the problem of disguised unemployment so they r withdrawing their labour from farming..

** Credit shortage to farmers...Demands are up to provided value of loans....

** Engaged to the other non farming activities....

## Good luck !!!

Answer 2

India’s production of food grains has been increasing every year, and India is among the top producers of several crops such as wheat, rice, pulses, sugarcane, and cotton. It is the highest producer of milk and second highest producer of fruits and vegetables. In 2013, India contributed 25% of the world’s pulses production, the highest for any one country, 22% of the rice production and 13% of the wheat production. It also accounted for about 25% of the total quantity of cotton produced, besides being the second highest exporter of cotton for the past several years.

Despite all these there are so many times we have witnessed in news about the deplorable plight of Indian farmers, and the worst part that shook our conscience is the alarming increase in farmer's suicide. I will answer to your question first and then share my concerns.

The agriculture sector’s contribution has decreased from more than 50% of GDP in the 1950s to 15.4% in 2015-16. Seeing these numbers any layman might think it is bad to the country, especially for a country like India, but the truth is these numbers reflects indeed India is on the path of development. let me tell you why, India's agricultural productivity in this sector increased from 20.5 Bn USD to 150+ Bn USD between 1950 and 2016. So there is only a fall in relative numbers, but it is similar to the trend of developing countries which is again because the value added per workforce in the agriculture sector has increased in the last 60 years: by a factor of 3. However, where they loose out is that the same ratio for Manufacture and services combined stands at 6.4. So it is okay to loose out when comes to service and manufacture sectors, you think this is not fair then ask yourselves do you really want to see a huge number of our workforce to plow the fields even in the 21rst century ?

Now coming to the real problem faced, one thing we should worry is that we failed to reduce the % of the population dependent on employment in agriculture sector. More than 50% of India's population dependent on the agriculture sector. One of the reasons China is now what it is because it was successful in bringing out 1% of its population out of agriculture on a YOY basis, India failed. China made it possible because people got better jobs in manufacture and service sectors.

Since more number of people dependent on agriculture, there is a decrease in the size of agricultural land landholdings, now it is a problem because there is no scope for improvement here, no incentives to use modern technologies, as consolidation of farms aren't happening, Indian farmers put so much of manual labour in a small piece of land which is actually a zero sum game. Since at the end of the year, they left with nothing. If farms are in much larger scale usage farmers could reap out profit by leveraging technology, economy of scale comes into play but traditional farming with the usage of cows in marginal land holdings leads to one of the lowest per capita production and income. This is an age old problem that government can do little to solve.