This report offers an overview of agricultural policies that have been taking place since independence in India. It also provides the impact of policies on farming and the intention of governments behind it. It primarily examines the agenda of the current government that is focused on the doubling of farmers’ income, the allocation and efficiency of land and water, reforms in agricultural markets and insurance etc.
The Indian agriculture sector employs nearly half of the workforce in the country. However, it contributes17.5% to GDP that was almost 50% in the 1950s, but its employability remains the same till now.
Agriculture is in the state list. The constitution provides power to the state for enacting laws related to land and the betterment of agriculture. Article 48 directs the state to organize agriculture and animal husbandry on modern scientific lines. Governments have been taking policy decisions for the advantages of the peasants, but the means do not have calibre to meet the end on many occasions.
Historical Background
India has been a witness of a long tradition of agriculture. Its history can be traced in the urban Indus Valley civilisation where its habitants was involved in the production of Cotton. In the later Vedic period, organised farming and animal husbandry had become frequent and agricultural trade was benefitting to traders. Tax on agriculture, collected by the king, was the leading source of state revenue. Several dynasties like the Maurya, the Gupta, Harsha and others had also recognised its importance and made investments in building canals, dams and ponds. These practices have been travelling since the ancient to colonial period. The colonial Britain inaugurated many land reforms according to his need and distorted the whole structure and hierarchy of the agricultural set up. The centre of first phase policies’ attention was to fix these distortions.
Agricultural policies just after independence
The first phase was primarily focused on the land reforms including the consolidation of holdings, the distribution of land to landless farmers and the abolition of the Zamindari system. Zamindari abolition act came in force in 1950 with the objective to eliminate land inter-mediatory, ensure ownership rights to tillers of land and ensure a permanent improvement in the quality of the landholding. As many know, it succeeded in such states where political will was strong and the left-leaning governments were in power, but in many states it could not find its destiny. Bihar was one of them where pro-Zamindar parties were dominant and the implementation of reforms initiatives secured less priority.
The Green Revolution Era
The dawn of the 1960s marked the advent of green revolution with the purposes of using HYV of wheat and rice, improved irrigation pattern and the needed fertilizer and agro-chemical to enhance the productivity of land and the production of food-grains.
These years are known as a golden period of Indian agriculture in terms of setting up the commission for agriculture costs and prices, the food corporation of India, agricultural universities and financial institutions for agro-credit.
These all policy initiatives resulted in a quick leap in crop yields and food grain production. And, ultimately we got our aim. We attained self-sufficiency in food-grains; increased agro-input industry (rapid growth in fertilizer, seed and farm machinery etc.) and the funding of agriculture.
The overall investment (public and private) in agriculture was almost 1% of GDP. It was the need of the hour to reform the domestic regulations that would improve the incentive structure for increasing private sector investment in the agro-food sector.
Economic liberalisation and the NAP 2000
The structural adjustment programme could not meet this end because the new economic liberalisation policy of 1991 was not able to attract this charming initiative as the present government wants so. It was the beginning of the new millennium year when New Agriculture Policy, 2000 was launched by the NDA government with the objective of strengthening private sector participation through contract farming, assuring a market for crops, increasing institutional and cooperative credit system and agricultural insurance. Land reforms had also found a tiny space in the policy. Then the reform needed to address three important issues—first, to map land carefully and assign conclusive titles; second, to facilitate land leasing; and third, and to create a fair but speedy process of land acquisition for public purposes.
For these purposes, the national land record modernisation programme was launched in 2008; the both land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement act and the food security act were enacted in 2013.
The Rise of Modi
An agricultural policy has a vast dimension of production, prices, marketing, credits, trade, research, and education of food-grains and crops.
As Modi claimed Delhi in 2014, the agriculture policy has started shaping with the market's need to liberalize the farm set up. The government has introduced a pan-India electronic trading portal- National Agriculture Market (eNAM); National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) for enhancing agricultural productivity; PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana to accord high priority to water conservation; Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana for crop insurance that integrates multiple stakeholders on a single platform; and a dedicated Rs5,000 crore fund to cover more land area under micro-irrigation to boost agriculture production and farmers income etc.
New Farm Laws and Farmers Agitation
In September 2020, the government came with three laws with the aim to allow intra-and-inter-state trade of farmers’ produce beyond APMC markets without State governments’ levy and cess, contract farming to attract private investment and regulating the supply of certain food items by the central government in emergency. These provisions will allow the farmers to trade freely that increase in competition among them result in better prices for farmers.
The government has been relentlessly asserting that the three laws are absolutely beneficial to the farmers while the farmers refute this claim made by the government, and draw many demands—the abolition of these laws, a statutory provision for MSP and decriminalise stubble burning etc. Two demands have been accepted by the government in the latest talk on 30 December 2020, but the two-months-long farmer agitation still continues.
The Need of the Hour
Agricultural sector in India has been struggling for public-or-private investment since Independence. For the early years, the government did not agree to open the agriculture sector for the private players that’s why the investment was almost 1%. The 1990s economic crisis had potential to open up the sector but still the government could not show its courage. It happened in 2000 when the NDA coalition government came to power and introduced a National Agriculture Policy with attractive private investment provisions. But, the government was not long-lasting and the policies had been modified by the upcoming UPA government. The advent of Modi is restoring the said one and implementing reforms for gaining investment.
History has witnessed that the investment in any field absolutely changes the shape and the figure of the sector, but the Indian farmers always look at private investment in the sceptic manner. The government and the civil society must try to makeover this mindset so that the fruit of the private investment becomes real.
