The Hindu Business Line : PM calls for doubling farm growth rate

The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, with the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, at the National Krishi Vigyan Kendra Conference 2005 in New Delhi on Thursday. - R.V. Moorthy

New Delhi , Oct 27

FORECASTING an economic growth of over 7 per cent this fiscal, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on Thursday emphasised the need to aim for an agricultural growth rate of over 4 per cent per annum on a sustained basis, to accelerate the annual GDP growth to over 8 per cent in the coming years.

"We grew at almost 7 per cent last year and this year too, we expect growth to be in excess of 7 per cent. However, this is based on a growth in agriculture of less than 2 per cent," Dr Singh said inaugurating the first national conference on Krishi Vigyan Kendras.

He said the environment was quite favourable for accelerating the economic growth rate to beyond 8 per cent.

"If we have to achieve our ambitions of growing at a rapid pace of over 8 per cent per annum, then we must aim at an agricultural growth rate of over 4 per cent per annum on a sustained basis. Unfortunately, this has not been so in the recent past with average agricultural growth rates of just 1.5 per cent in the first three years of the Tenth Five-Year Plan," he said.

He pointed out that agriculture continued to play a "vital role" in the economy, even though its share in the GDP had been declining over the years.

"Today, the contribution of agriculture to our GDP is only about 22 per cent but the proportion of our population dependent on agriculture has not declined in a similar manner and even now, almost 65 per cent of our population relies on agriculture for its sustenance.

"In fact, the proportion of national income generated in agriculture has gone down drastically while the proportion of population dependent on agriculture has declined marginally over the last 40 or 50 years, an indication of a growing gap between rural India and urban areas," Dr Singh said.

The Prime Minister stressed on the need to find credible strategies to reduce and eliminate this gap. Highlighting the need to enhance productivity and output in agriculture, he said, "special emphasis has to be laid on improving the productivity of land and the productivity and efficiency of water use in agricultural practices."

Calling for a second green revolution, the Prime Minister pointed out that the agricultural sciences would have to work towards providing the technological basis for new breakthroughs.

"They will have to look at providing crop specific, region specific, resource specific and farm specific solutions", he noted.

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