The Indian Agrarian Catastrophe - Presenting Solutions

Adesh Chaurasia Updates - Agricultural Landscape

The scenario- Then v/s Now

For years, agriculture has been the primary source of income generation and livelihood for a large chunk of our population. India was always labeled as being a self-independent nation when it came to generating food items and feeding its population. Not only this, our nation was known to supply large amounts of edible elements to other countries as well.

Starting from grains of almost all sorts, like, wheat, rice, millets, bajra, jowar, maize, etc. to spices and condiments. Also, fruits and vegetables along with oilseeds like sunflower, mustard, etc. are grown in our country.

Additionally, India is known to offer suitable natural circumstances under which cash crops like tea, coffee, cotton, sugarcane, etc. can also be grown and further used to earn monetary benefit in return for importing these items.

Agriculture in India comes under the category of primary sector activities because it is one of the key streams of livelihood for people of rural areas to date. Citizens residing in rural areas of India often practice agricultural activities along with taking up small businesses like dairy, poultry, opening small shops, etc.

This way, we know that a good part of the Indian population is still dependent on agriculture as being their medium to earn bread and butter. Therefore, special and crucial attention must be given to this particular field of work in order to stabilize practicing work for many citizens who are a part of our nation.

The challenges

Agriculture, as a field of work, is not free from intense struggles and challenges. Being an activity in which the results and outcomes depend largely on environmental factors, clear expectations of positive returns can be somewhat misleading.

Keeping aside large or even medium-level farmers who can afford to invest in good implements and other required appliances that would make their tasks in the field of agriculture relatively easy, the small farmers are hardly able to afford any such benefiting options in order to yield good produce.

Small farmers, sadly, still have to depend on rainfalls for irrigation purposes, manual labor for sowing and harvesting crops, organic and self-made manure for adding nutritional elements to the soil, etc. All these petty investments tend to be of either little or no use at all, as compared to large farmers who invest some bucks and gain a whole treasure out of selling a good amount of produce.

Other than that, every field of work gives rise to a certain level of monopoly and business game going on internally, as a part of the inevitable cycle of business politics that one enters almost unwillingly by simply being a part of the work.

The solutions

Taking into consideration the intensity of challenges faced by the Indian farmers, the government tries hard to step up on their policies and plans in order to help the agriculturalists feel backed up in case of any assistance required.

• Introduction of assistance policies

Pertaining to the current circumstances wherein the market trends change almost every day, supporting the Indian farmers must be on the priority list of deriving plans of action by the government.

Formulating plans based on providing real-time assistance such as the provision of loans and investment plans at low rates of interest and fewer documentation complications, provision of farm implements, and other related material at nominal prices so that the farmers never feel pressured overwork.

• Formulating resilient backup plans

The government is also working hard to formulate solid and resilient plans that help the farmers to bounce back almost immediately and strongly in case of unfortunate circumstances like crop failures, loss of yield, etc.

To sum up

Agriculture as a livelihood activity is gifted to us back from our ancestral times. India has forever been on the list of countries that are agriculturally rich. Keeping up with this status, we must all work together to enhance the ways in which we keep our primary sector moving forward on the path of success and improvement.
Ramesh ChaurasiaAdesh ChaurasiaAchal Chaurasia