By Arunav Goel for NeemTree Agro Solution

“If conservation of natural resources goes wrong, nothing else will go right”
-MS Swaminathan

The science and the art of cultivating plants and rearing of farm animals for consumption in different ways by humans is called Agriculture. The history of agriculture dates back thousands of years. Agriculture led to settled life which was soon followed with implements and techniques being developed for agriculture itself. Following independence in 1947, significant growth was registered in the agricultural sector, which was by now benefiting from the earlier reforms like the Green revolution and Economic reforms of 1991 and the newer innovations of Agro-processing and Biotechnology. Today approximately 50% of the world’s population and more than 50% of India’s population is engaged in agricultural activities. Agriculture contributes to 18% of the GDP of India, which is on a decline for a decade. India is one of the largest producers of many fruits, vegetables, spices and staple food like wheat and rice. MS Swaminathan and Verghese Kurien are two personalities who have played an influential role in the development of the agricultural industry of India. The farmers in India have been provided with various assists by the government of India since independence like Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Financial aid for advanced irrigation facilities, scholarship to their children, and a lot more. Yet, there are still several problems that the farmers of our country have to face every other day. The problems are wide-ranging and could be due to natural or artificial reasons. Some of those problems faced by the agricultural sector of India are:-

● Infrastructure:- The poor rural roads of India affect the timely supply of inputs
and the timely transfer of outputs from the farms. It leads to a lack of cheap and
efficient means of transportation and the roads become useless in rainy season.
Indian agriculture is still suffering from lack of assumed and controlled
water supply through artificial irrigation facilities leading to crop failures in parts of
the country where the farmers depend upon rainfall, hence in the absence of
assured and controlled water supply, the agricultural productivity in India is
bound to be low.

● Natural Crises:- Untimely or severe or inadequate rainfall often leads to
fluctuations in the production of food-grains and other crops which in turn leads
to fluctuations in prices of agricultural crops. Regions of inadequate rainfall leads
to deadly droughts, making crop failures more common and food for cattle
scarce.

● Lack of Labour :- In villages, most of the people who earlier used to work for farmers in the field have migrated to cities in search of better work, and the
remaining laborers aren’t sufficient to match the number required by the farmers.
This leads to more demand for money which a farmer with small landholding
finds difficult to pay.

● Inadequate storage capacity:- In rural areas, the storage facilities are either
completely missing or severely inadequate to store the crops. As a result, the
farmers are forced to sell their produce soon after the harvest at the market
prices which are obviously low at those times leading to income losses for the
farmers.

● Poor Mechanization:- In large parts of the country, almost all of the farming is
carried out by human hand using simple and orthodox methods. This results in
huge wastage of human labor as well as low in low yields per ca-pita labor force.

● Land Distribution:- The distribution of agricultural land is not fair. This poor
distribution of land is a result of the inheritance law. A large part of the
landholdings are under rich landlords and moneylenders and most of the small
farmers own a very small piece of land which is eventually uneconomic for them.

● Inadequate use of Manures and Fertilizers:- An extensive use of the Indian soil
for agriculture for a thousand years has exhausted the soil, now resulting in their
low productivity. This problem can be solved by effective use of manure and
fertilizers.

● Scarcity of Capital and Cycle of Indebtedness:- A accumulation of the above issues often leads to the farmer losing his savings and reluctantly, have to borrow
money from money lenders to meet their requirements needed to produce more
crops. But, due to low earnings and high interest rates of the moneylenders, the
farmers unable to pay back the money, are stuck in a vicious cycle of
indebtedness which passes on from generation to generation.