Assessing Some Major Factors of Production and Efficiency Parameters in the Post Reform Agricultural Sector in Indian Economy | Chapter 4 | New Advances in Business, Management and Economics Vol. 9

 

In the Indian scenario, agriculture is the provider of food security and livelihoods and an earner of foreign exchange. Although the agricultural sector has been a prominent sector for development under the policy regimes undertaken by the Government of India and self-sufficiency in food production has been achieved, there is still a major necessity to increase production, as high GDP growth without corresponding agricultural growth could lead to an acceleration in inflation. This article analyses some of the factors affecting agricultural production and the possible set of efficiency parameters that can play an important role in improving the productivity of this sector. The study analyses the performance of institutional credit, net irrigated area, consumption of fertilisers and consumption of pesticides as major contributory factors of agricultural production in the Indian economy in the post-1990 era. Moreover, an increase in the contributory efficiency parameters can also play an important role in increasing the output of a sector. Thus, this study has discussed the importance of some of these factors, like the rate of rural literacy and the rate of rural technical education, the length of road per square km, share of agricultural NSDP to total NSDP in the Indian agricultural sector for the post-reforms period. Adequate food security would insulate the Indian economy from fluctuations of agricultural prices in international markets, and increased cash crop production could act as a generator of foreign exchange. Though the growth of performance of institutional credit, consumption of fertilisers and consumption of pesticides has been quite satisfactory over the years in the post-reforms period, more steps need to be taken to technologically advance the availability of water for agricultural production. Thus, policies in the current time should concentrate more on increasing the efficiency of producers in the agricultural sector of the Indian economy, along with allocating more resources to the sector.

 

Author(s) Details

Pia Ghoshal
Post Graduate Department of Economics, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata, India.

 

Please see the book here:- https://doi.org/10.9734/bpi/nabme/v9/5855