Agriculture growth helped industry in three critical ways: Provision of raw materials, markets for its products, and labour and capital for industry. Institutional development helped both in creating an agricultural surplus and developing strong links with industry. Where the institutions were absent, industrial revolution could not take off.

There is no denying the fact that prosperity begins in the agricultural sector and fuels development. It is, therefore, easy to understand why the Eleventh Plan hopes to reverse the growth trend in agriculture and move to a high trajectory of 4 per cent growth.

The poor performance of the farm sector since the late 1990s does not help bring India to the much-deserved second position in world cereal production. In 2004, for instance, the total global cereal production covering 185 countries was 2,270 million tonnes.

Of this, almost half was contributed by China (18 per cent), the US (17 per cent) and India (10 per cent), followed by the nine nations (Russian Federation, France, Indonesia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Vietnam), which together accounted for a 22 per cent share with an average national share of just a little over 2 per cent. The remaining 173 countries are also producers, but with a relatively less global status.

The relationship between yield and irrigation is best brought out in the case of rice. In terms of averages by decade, rice yields are as follows: (in kg per hectare) 1950s — 606; 1960s — 718; 1970s — 892; 1980s — 1,156; and 1990s — 1,525.

The yield rose further to 2,001 kg during 2000-05. Land area irrigated rose from 18 per cent during the 1950s to 40 per cent in the 1990s. It is worth taking a look at rice yields in China and India, given the pre-eminent position of that country in rice, in particular, and cereals, in general (see Table).

The rice yields on the basis of harvested area point to the possibility for raising our rice yields to twice that we are getting now.

As the National Policy for Farmers points out, “The first and foremost task … should be in the area of land reform with particular reference to tenancy laws, distribution of ceiling-surplus land, attention to common property and wasteland resources, and the consolidation of holdings. ...

Also, there should be stringent restrictions on the diversion of prime farmland for non-farm purposes.” The ground reality with regard to land reform is dismally different, despite the fact that every state has about the same land ceiling levels for irrigated and dry lands. As one of the most recent Magsaysay Award Winners, Mr P. Sainath, wrote in The Hindu of August 9 (‘The Decade of Our Discontent), “In 60 years we haven’t managed — except in three S tates — to push through any serious land reforms or tenancy reforms. But we can clear a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in six months.”

The Report of the Working Group on Land Relations for Formulation of the Eleventh Plan submitted on July 31, 2006, has several useful recommendations on all aspects relating to land relations.

On ceilings, for instance, the recommendations include setting new limits (five-10 acres in the case of irrigated land and 10-15 acres in the case of non-irrigated land), amending the Benami Transactions (Prohibition of the Right to Recover Property) Act, 1989, to ensure prompt detection of evasion of provisions of the ceiling law through benami land transactions, imposing criminal sanction on the failure to furnish declaration of ceiling surplus land by land holders, setting up L and Tribunals or Fast Track Courts for expeditious disposal of appeal cases, states to empower the concerned authorities to expedite allotment of ceiling surplus land, and lower land ceilings for absentee landlords or non-resident land owners.

A lot has been written and discussed. It is time for action.

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