Agriculture & Rural Development

Agriculture has been a way of life and continues to be the single most important Livelihood of the masses. Agricultural policy focus in India across decades has been on self-sufficiency and self-reliance in food grains production. Considerable progress has been made on this front. Food grains production rose from 52 million tonnes in 1951-52 to 244.78 million tonnes in 2010-11. The share of agriculture in real GDP has fallen given its lower growth rate relative to industry and services. However, what is of concern is that growth in the agricultural sector has quite often fallen short of the Plan targets. During the period 1960-61 to 2010-11, food grains production grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 2 per cent. In fact, the Ninth and Tenth Five Year Plans witnessed agricultural pectoral growth rate of 2.44 per cent and 2.30 per cent respectively compared to 4.72 per cent during Eighth Five Year Plan.