Agriculture in Indian development: its role, the Green Revolution and agricultural labour

1. Role of agriculture in the Indian economy

• Share in national income. Agriculture was the largest sector in 1951. Its share in GDP has fallen steadily as industry and services grew, which is the normal pattern of development, but it remains a large sector in absolute terms.
• Employment. It is still the largest single source of livelihood, employing a far greater share of the workforce than its share of output, which is why output per worker is low.
• Food security. It feeds the population and supplies the stocks for the public distribution system under the National Food Security Act, 2013.
• Raw materials for industry. Cotton textiles, jute, sugar, edible oils, food processing and plantations depend on farm output.
• Market for industrial goods. Rural households buy fertilisers, tractors, pumps, cloth and consumer goods; a good monsoon raises demand for industry.
• Exports. Rice, spices, tea, coffee, marine products, cotton and sugar are significant exports.
• Capital formation. In the early stages a surplus from agriculture (savings, taxes, food for urban workers) finances industrial growth.
• Stability of the economy. Food prices carry a large weight in the Consumer Price Index, so farm output affects inflation and monetary policy.

2. Causes of low agricultural productivity

• General causes: excessive pressure of population on land, disguised unemployment, a rural social structure resistant to change.
• Institutional causes: small and fragmented holdings, defective land tenure (historically zamindari and insecure tenancy), inadequate credit and marketing.
• Technological causes: dependence on the monsoon (a large part of the cropped area is still rain-fed), inadequate irrigation, traditional seeds and implements, soil depletion, and limited extension services.

3. The Green Revolution

Meaning. The Green Revolution is the sharp rise in food-grain output, above all wheat, that followed the introduction of high-yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds with fertilisers, irrigation and pesticides from the mid-1960s. The new strategy was introduced in 1965–66 after two droughts and dependence on food imports under the US PL-480 programme. The dwarf wheat varieties were developed by Norman Borlaug in Mexico; in India the programme is associated with M.S. Swaminathan and the Agriculture Minister C. Subramaniam. It was preceded by the Intensive Agricultural District Programme (1960–61).

Components (the “package”).

1. HYV seeds of wheat and later rice;
2. chemical fertilisers and pesticides;
3. assured irrigation, especially tube-wells;
4. farm mechanisation (tractors, threshers);
5. institutional credit, minimum support prices announced on the advice of the Agricultural Prices Commission (now the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices), and procurement by the Food Corporation of India (both set up in 1965).

Achievements.

• A large rise in wheat output and yields, and later in rice; India moved from dependence on food imports to self-sufficiency in food grains and built buffer stocks.
• Higher farm incomes in irrigated areas and growth of rural demand for industrial goods.
• Growth of industries supplying fertilisers, pumps and machinery.
• Change in farmers’ attitude: agriculture became a commercial activity.

Drawbacks.

• Crop imbalance: gains were concentrated in wheat and rice; pulses, oilseeds and coarse grains lagged.
• Regional imbalance: benefits went mainly to irrigated areas of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh; rain-fed and eastern regions gained much less.
• Inequality between farmers: larger farmers who could afford the package gained more; some tenants were evicted as land became more valuable.
• Ecological damage: falling groundwater tables, soil salinity and loss of fertility from overuse of fertilisers, pesticide residues, and loss of crop diversity.
• Labour displacement from mechanisation in some areas.

The call now is for an “evergreen revolution” (Swaminathan’s phrase): raising productivity without harming the environment, with attention to dry-land farming, pulses and oilseeds, and soil health.

4. Problems of agricultural labour

Agricultural labourers are those who work on others’ land for wages, in cash or kind. Their problems:

• Low wages, often below the notified minimum wage, and paid partly in kind;
• seasonal unemployment and underemployment, with work available only during sowing and harvest;
• indebtedness to landlords and moneylenders, which historically produced bonded labour;
• no organisation: labourers are scattered, illiterate and unorganised, so they have little bargaining power;
• poor living conditions, lack of housing and social security;
• social disadvantage: a large share belong to Scheduled Castes and Tribes; women labourers are paid less;
• displacement by mechanisation and migration to towns in distress.

Measures. The Minimum Wages Act, 1948 (now subsumed in the Code on Wages, 2019, in force with the other Labour Codes from 21 November 2025); abolition of bonded labour by the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976; land reforms and distribution of surplus land; rural employment guarantee, first under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (100 days of wage employment a year for every rural household whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work) and, from 1 July 2026, under the Viksit Bharat – Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-G RAM G), which repealed MGNREGA and raised the guarantee to 125 days, with the States now sharing the cost; and social security for unorganised workers under the Code on Social Security, 2020.

How this is examined

“Explain the role of agriculture in Indian economy” was a 10-mark option in both the January/February 2025 and June/July 2025 papers. The Green Revolution was a short note in January/February 2025 and a compulsory short answer in the 100-mark June/July 2025 paper. “Problems of agricultural labour” was a 6-mark note in June/July 2025. Keep the Green Revolution answer to four headings: meaning and origin, the package, achievements, drawbacks.