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)
