Reviving and Sustaining Agriculture in Emerging Economies

writer of this paper wants to tell the reader about the dire condition of agriculture and its practitioners and ways of curing this illness which has taken many lives in the form of suicides in emerging economies. The so called developing countries like india(my country), brazil, china etc have been embracing industry often at the peril of the agriculture. After liberlisation, governments of these countries have been excessively concentrating on the growth, in fact only on the quantitative aspect. the qualitative aspect i.e, the inclusiveness of growth has been completely left out or addressed only for name sake. For example let us take example of india. contributions of various sectors to growth(GDP) were as follows in 1973.

1. Primary 43%

2. Secondary 20%

3. Tertiary 35%

contributions in 2003 were

1. Primary 25%

2. Secondary 20%

3. Tertiary 55%

Any person who watch these numbers think that india has made rapid strides in the tertiary sector and would also think that most of the people in country are working in the tertiary sector. WRONG.

Let us see contribution to employment by the primary sector.

In 1973 it was 73%

In 2003 it was 60%

Thus we can see how inclusive the growth has been since the liberalisation.

So what could be the causes for this dismal performance in agriculture. Here are some of them.

1.Lack of credit would be the foremost. Despite the ruling of central bank that banks must meet the credit targets, in practice it is not followed

2.Lack of proper crop insurance scheme

3.Lack of sustainability of agriculture(unscrupulous use of fertilizers and groundwater)