The Economic Survey 2015-16 presented in Parliament by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley emphasises that in order to provide food security, in the current agriculture scenario, India has to focus on supplies which are timely and uninterrupted and affordable for the poor.
“Though India’s GDP growth has been impressive and the agricultural production has also increased over the past few decades, hunger and starvation still persist among the poorer section of the population. There has been moderation of inflation including food inflation during the last two years, but more needs to be achieved by freeing up markets, augmenting supply of food and leveraging the use of IT,” he stated in his speech.
The economic survey says that 57% of households had calorie intake below 2,160 kcal/ consumer unit/day although average protein intake per capita per day rises steadily. India has the second-highest number of undernourished people which warrants immediate attention.
However, India ranks first in milk production, accounting for 18.5 per cent of world production, recording a growth of 6.26% whereas world milk production increases by 3.1%. The per capita availability of milk in India has increased from 176 gram per day in 1990-91 to 322 gram per day by 2014-15. Egg and fish production has also registered an increasing trend over the years. The production of fish during the last quarters of 2015-16 has also shown an increasing trend and is estimated at 4.79 mt.
On agriculture sector, the economic survey says that there is a need for transformation to ensure sustainable livelihoods for farmers and food security, with a demand-driven agricultural advisory services. On GM crops and seeds, the survey says, concerns about affordability of hybrids and GM seeds, environmental and ethical issues in cultivation of GM crops, risk to the food chain, disease spread and cross pollination have resulted in their non-introduction. These issues need to be debated, tested, and evaluated, so that introduction of hybrids is facilitated in the next six months.
The adoption of hybrid and HYV seeds is one definite pathway to raising productivity in Indian agriculture. Further, there is a need for further research and technology for seed development.
“Inadequate research and genetic engineering has been a constraint in the development of seeds/ seeds technology in major crops during the past few decades in India. There is need to encourage development of seeds/ seed technologies in both private and public sectors to initiate another round of green revolution. This development should cover all agriculture segments/ crops-cereals, coarse cereals, fruits and vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, animal husbandry, and pisciculture—simultaneously,” it says.
The survey also says that percentage share of horticulture output in agriculture is more than 33 per cent and over the last decade, the area under horticulture grew by about 2.7 % per annum and annual production increased by 7%. This has resulted in production of horticulture crops outpacing the production of food grain since 2012-13.
The survey says, that over the last decade, the area under horticulture grew by about 2.7 per cent per annum and annual production increased by 7.0 per cent. During 2013-14, the production of horticulture crops was about 283.5 million tonne from an area of 24.2 million hectare. Out of the six categories, e.g., fruits, vegetables, flowers, aromatic plants, spices and plantation crops, the highest annual growth of 9.5 per cent is seen in fruit production during 2013-14. The production of vegetables has increased from 58,532,000 tonne to 1,67,058,000 tonne since 1991-92 to 2014-15 (3rd AE).
India witnessed sharper increase in acreage in horticulture crops compared to food grains over the last five years (from 2010-11 to 2014-15). The area under horticulture crops increased around 18 per cent compared to an expansion of area under food grains by 5 per cent during the stipulated period. The production of horticulture crops has outpaced that of food grain since 2012-13.
