Agriculture: Pattern & Structure of Growth, Major Challenges, Policy Responses | UGC NET – Notes

Introduction

Agriculture occupies a distinctive position in the Indian economy despite its declining share in Gross Value Added (GVA). While agriculture and allied sectors contribute around 17-18% of India’s GVA (at current prices, recent estimates), the sector still employs nearly 42-44% of the total workforce, making the disproportion between output share and employment share one of the most defining structural features of Indian agriculture. This mismatch is often explained through the lens of disguised unemployment and low labor productivity, concepts central to the classical development economics of Arthur Lewis, Ranis-Fei, and applied extensively to the Indian context by economists like Amartya Sen and C.H. Hanumantha Rao.

Pattern of Growth

The growth pattern of Indian agriculture since independence can be divided into distinct phases. The pre-Green Revolution phase (1950-1965) was characterized by extensive cultivation, where output growth came primarily from area expansion rather than yield improvement, alongside heavy dependence on monsoon rainfall—a phenomenon termed a “gamble on monsoon” by V.M. Dandekar. The Green Revolution phase (mid-1960s to 1980s), triggered by the food crisis of 1965-66 and the import of Mexican dwarf wheat varieties under the guidance of M.S. Swaminathan and Norman Borlaug, shifted the growth engine toward yield-based intensification using High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds, chemical fertilizers, assured irrigation, and pesticides. This revolution was geographically concentrated—predominantly in Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh—and crop-specific, focusing overwhelmingly on wheat and rice, leaving pulses and oilseeds relatively untouched, a distortion still visible in cropping patterns today.

The post-reform phase (1991 onward) saw agricultural growth becoming increasingly volatile and, at times, decelerating relative to the overall GDP growth rate, giving rise to what economists like Ashok Gulati term the agrarian crisis. The 2000s onward period witnessed some diversification toward horticulture, livestock, and fisheries, often labeled the “silent revolution,” with these allied activities growing faster than foodgrain production. Notably, the livestock sector, driven by milk production under the “White Revolution” (Operation Flood, led by Verghese Kurien), has emerged as a major growth driver, with India becoming the world’s largest milk producer.