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Farmed land, food per person declined over 25 years
By
Saumya TewariFarmed land, food per person declined over 25 years
Saumya Tewari
The land available for farming in India, already under decline, is
feared to drop further with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government
trying to push through a controversial bill that is being criticised in the
present format by a host of opposition parties, led by the Congress.
The most controversial change proposed is the exemption of five categories of
projects - industrial corridors, public-private partnership projects, rural
infrastructure, public housing and defence projects - from getting the consent
of 70 percent farmers of the area.
This is worrisome since cultivated land on India’s farms declined 15 percent
over the past 25 years, according to government data analysed by IndiaSpend,
reducing foodgrain production and portending new pressures as more land is set
to be acquired for industries.
While the net sown area includes orchards and crops, the cultivated area covers
only crops. Land sown with crops declined from nearly 87 percent in 1987-88 to
72 percent in 2011-12.
IndiaSpend’s recent reports have been focusing on the farm crisis in India with
case studies of Bundelkhand farmers. It has also reported on the decline in
farmers across India.
Reasons for the decline in cultivated land include a drop in households owning
land in rural India and a decline in the proportion of households dependent on
manual labour and farming, says a study by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies,
using data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) of the Ministry
of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
To analyse how the drop in cultivated area has affected India’s food
sufficiency, availability of foodgrains (cereals and pulses) was matched with
the decrease in cultivated land. The decline is clear.
Key problems with agriculture in India are related to low yields and
production. Accordingly, Foodgrain availability also declined from 471.8 grams
per capita to 453.6 grams per capita over the last four decades.
But there is a saving grace: Yield. This has been improving over the decades -
from 1,023 in kg per hectare in 1980-81 to 2,101 in kg/ha in 2013-14 for food
grains, as per data published in the official Economic Survey.
For oil seeds it was from 532 kh/ha to 1,153 kg/ha and for cotton from 152
kg/ha to 532 kg/ha.
So, foodgrain yield has almost doubled between 1980-81 and 2013-14, while
oilseeds and cotton have also witnessed an increase of 116 percent and 250 percent
in yields respectively.
Despite its fluctuating farm fortunes, India is among the world’s top producers
of food crops, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization. But it its yields across the spectrum of agricultural products
are low.
In cereals, for example, it is the third largest producer in the world, and in
terms of the yields of top five producers, though, the country ranks fifth. For
coarse grains, the ranking is fourth and ifth, respectively.
(In arrangement with Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public-interest
journalism platform)