The document discusses the causes of low productivity in Indian agriculture. It identifies general causes such as social environment, population pressure on land, land degradation, and inadequate infrastructure. Institutional causes include the land tenure system, small size of land holdings, lack of infrastructure, and low investment. Technical causes are poor production techniques, inadequate irrigation, and environmental degradation. It concludes by outlining measures to improve agricultural productivity such as increasing irrigation, improving farmer returns, institutional reforms, and farmer education.

1. UNIT -5
Agriculture sector

2. Causes for Low Productivity in
Agriculture
A) General Causes
i)Social Environment
ii) Population Pressure on Land
iii) Land degradation
iv)Inadequate Infrastructure
B) Institutional Causes
i)Land Tenure System
Ii)Size of Holdings
iii) Lack of Infrastructure
iv)Deficiency of Investment
C] Technical Causes
i)Poor Techniques of Production
ii)Inadequate Irrigation
iii)Environmental degradation

3. A) General Causes
1) 1)Social Environment
The Social Environment of villages
is an obstacle in agricultural
development. Majority of Indian farmers
are illiterates, superstitions ,
conservative and non-responsive to new
agricultural techniques. But this
situations is being in transformation and
slowly more and more farmers are
adopting new techniques/technology of
agriculture.

4. Ii)Population Pressure on Land:
Population pressure is heavy on
land. As non-agricultural sector is not
absorbing the total workers, the pressure on
land is increasing continuously. In 2011, out
of 349 million rural working population,263
million workers were employed in
agriculture sector. Increasing population
pressure on land is partly responsible for
subdivision and fragmentation of holding
.Productivity in small uneconomic land
holdings is low

5. iii)Land Degradation:
Nearly half of the country’s
land (329 million hectares) is
degraded.43% of the suffers from high
degradation resulting in 33-67 percent
yield loss. 5% of the land is so damaged
that it is unusual. Soil degradation is one
of the major causes for low agriculture
productivity in the country.

6. iv) Inadequate Infrastructure:
Inadequate infrastructure
facilities- such as roads, communication,
marketing, credit ,power and drainage-
will lead low agriculture productivity.
Various state governments have taken
many steps in this regard and the
situation is becoming better day by day.

7. B)Institutional Causes
i) Land Tenure system:
Highly exploitative Zamindari
/Jagirdari system out the capacity,
willingness and enthusiasm of the
farmers to increase production and
productivity. Abolition of intermediaries
took pace during first five year plan but
big landlord- tenant system still exits
which is one of the causes for low
productivity.

8. ii) Size of Holdings:
The average size of land holding in
India is very low. In 2010-11, 85% of total
land holding had a size of less than 2 acres.
So, the cultivation on them can be done by
lobour intensive techniques, and scientific
cultivation with improved implements ,seeds
etc, may not be possible. The existence of
uneconomic land holding is also the cause
for low agricultural yield.

9. iii)Lack of Entrepreneurship:
Agricultural sector is devoid
of all entrepreneurship and competition in
their agricultural operations. All the
developed nations have the enterprise
system

10. C)Technical Causes
i)Poor Techniques of Production:
Most of the Indian farmers are
using outdated production techniques.
Use of fertilizers and new high yielding
varieties of seeds is also limited. Still ,
Indian agriculture is traditional and
therefore productivity is low. Inadequate
availability and high cost of modern inputs
are also contributing to low productivity.
Inadequate and poor post-harvest
technology is also a problem.

13. ii) Inadequate Irrigation:
by the year 2019-20,India could
able to provide irrigation facility only to 45
per cent of total cropped area. Lack of
irrigation facility is major cause of low
agriculture productivity in India. The
management of existing irrigation facilities
also not up to the mark

14. iii)Environmental Degradation:
Environmental degradation like
soil erosion, ground water depletion etc.,
also contribute for low yield in agricultural.
Unlearned application of fertilizers,
pesticides along with others pollutants are
responsible for this this environmental
degration.

17. Measures to Improve Agricultural Productivity
in India:
1) Increase Irrigation Facilities
2) Improving the Returns to the
Farmers
3) Institutional Reforms/arrangements
4) Farmer Education

18. 1)Institutional Reforms/arrangements
Land reforms, though initiated in First Five Year
Plan, largely limited to abolition of
intermediaries. Tenancy reforms, identification
of surplus land, distribution of surplus land to
poor and needy were not done adequately.
Institutional arrangement for agricultural
financing is neither adequate nor timely till date.
Timely distribution of agricultural inputs like
quality seeds, fertilizers will improve the
situation. Adequate warehousing facilities are to
be provided. Marketing process of agriculture
products should become convenient and
remunerative.

19. 2)Increase Irrigation Facilities
Irrigation infrastructure a must to increase
the agriculture productivity as irrigation
facilities nearly three-fold increase in
agriculture productivity per annum and
per hectare. Irrigation along with
improvement in power supply largely
contributes to increase in productivity.

20. 3) Improving the Returns to
Farmers
For this, both price measures and non-
price measures have to be
implemented. Raising minimum support
prices for the crops, giving necessary
subsidies for agriculture inputs,
providing crop insurance facility,
reducing the population pressure on
land by increasing non-farm economic
activities and introducing managerial
concepts in agriculture definitely help to
increase agriculture productivity.

21. 4)Farmer Education
Farmers have to be educated to utilize their
resources in an optimum manner.
Education of an integrated and efficient
management of land and water resources
is needed to avoid the problem of land
degradation. Education supplements better
skilled managements for raising the level of
productivity. Better agricultural research for
soil testing and conservations is needed.
Suitable agro-climatic regional planning is
also required to increase the agriculture
productivity in India.