Indian agriculture employs 52% of the population but only contributes 13.7% to GDP, facing challenges such as low farmer income, erratic weather, and dependency on middlemen. The document highlights the distress leading to farmer suicides, with 12,360 reported in 2014, and discusses both immediate and long-term factors causing agrarian distress. Recommendations include adopting an integrated policy to address both direct and indirect causes of the issues in agriculture.

1. Farmer’s Distress in India
Submitted by
Sujit Kumar 2013UCE1729
Nitin Kumar 2013UCE1333
Submitted to
Dr. Preeti Bhatt
Department of Humanities and
Social Science

2. ● Contributes 13.7% to GDP
● Provides food to 1.25 Billion people
● Sustains 60% of the population
● Produces 51 major Crops
- Rice, wheat, maize, etc
● Seventh Largest agricultural exporter worldwide
● Huge bio-diversity : 46,000 species of plants &
86,000 species of animals
Indian Agriculture- Some Facts

3. Huge Challenge Ahead
Currently
• 52% of our population is involved in Agriculture, yet it
contributes just 13.7% to India’s GDP.
By 2050
• Global population will rise to 9 billion….out of which 1.7
billion will be in India alone.
• Food grain production would need to increase by 5.5 MT
annually.
• Total calorie requirement will go up from 2495 to 3000.
• Demand for high-value food commodities will go up by
>100% due to migration of people into cities, increased
wealth, shift towards diets rich in protein.

4. Status of
The Indian Farmers

5. Contrasting Reality
Big farmers or landholders
 Top 15 %
 Land > 2 ha
 Modern machinery &
technology
 Rich & self-dependant
Small or poor farmers
 85 % small landholders
 Land < 2 Ha
 Poor & dependant on external help
 High density regions
- Kerala, West-Bengal, Bihar,
Uttar Pradesh
 They cultivate 44% of the land and
contribute 50% to farm output.

6. ● 12,360 suicides in 2014.
● Farmer suicides account for 11.2% of all suicides in India
Farmer’s Suicide

7. Immediate reasons of Farmer’s distress
● Issues of weather and climate
- erratic weather
- rainfall does not happens at right time
- difficult to obtain irrigation water
● Decreasing size of landholding
- Division of land
- Less area less income
- Mechanisation and automation
becomes difficult
- Rely on labour
● Lack of farm labour
- Construction and Industries
- Urban migration
- Interested in education

8. Immediate reasons of Farmer’s distress
● Unsatisfactory realisation of prices
- inability of most farmers to sell their
produce in regulated market
- middle man enjoys profit
- get less price
● Inadequate storage facilities
- lack of cold storages
- 30 to 40 % agriculture is damaged
- Low price selling
● Quality of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers
- poor quality reduces fertility
- high price of good quality seeds
- use cow dung as fertilizer (ineffective)
- inability to buy chemical fertilizers.
● Absence of mechanisation

9. Factors Causing
Agrarian Distress in Long-run

10. Consequences of Green Revolution
● Degradation of soil quality due to reckless
chemical use
● Increased weeds & pests resistance
● Water table decreased & quality deteriorated
● Inter-Crop imbalances
● Increase in inequality among farmers

11. Extreme politicization of Farmers
● Shrinking landholding size clearly indicates the need to
bring farmers into services & manufacturing
● Huge voter bank (about 60 %)
● Every political party sympathies with farmers
● Farmers are made sacred cow
● Rural economic diversification hampered
● Unproductive farmers don’t quit farming

12. Income Tax Exemption
● Farmers don’t maintain their accounts
● Assessing credit potential is an onerous task for the
bank loan officers
● So bank loan officers in India rely on informal networks
to get info about the borrowers
● Thus big farmers get optimal credit & small landholders
approaches private moneylenders

13. Electricity bill subsidy for water pumps
● Practice leads to over-exploitation of groundwater.
● Water table drops in the long run.
● Causes excessive salination of soil.
● Local ecosystem gets adversely affected.
● Agricultural productivity decreases

14. Loan Waiver Trend
● Every election manifesto talks about loan waiver for
farmers.
● Not a solution, but a remedy.
● However, it leads a negative perception among
farmers.
● Unproductive farmers remain adhered to the farming.
● Studys shown that it has a negative impact in long run.

15. Fertilizer Subsidy Policy
● Fertilizer subsidy (40,000 crores) is the second-biggest
subsidy after food subsidy
● Reckless black marketing increases prices at user level
● Fertilizer use depends on soil type & require proper
knowledge
● Illiterate farmers do more harm to their fields by using
available fertilizers

16. FDI in Retail sector
● Intense protest over FDI in retail sector until
recently
● 60 years after independence wasted
● Biggest loss was to the farming sector
● Domestic food processing industry could not
develop
● Foreign players will boost agricultural infrastructure

17. Conclusion
● We need to focus on both the visible & direct
causes as well as the indirect one.
● Integrated policy for agriculture must be adopted.

18. Thank You