Indian Agriculture Since Independence

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Critically reviewing the performance of Indian Agriculture since independence, the book examines the relative performance of Indian agriculture both during the plan period and post-reform period as well as the role of agriculture in the development of Indian economy. The book also underlines the main cause of deceleration of agriculture in the post-reform period and makes policy suggestions for regeneration of Indian agriculture.

G. S. Bhalla (1928-2013) Professor Emeritus at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru Universsity, New Delhi, is a former Member of the Planning Commission, and former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Government of India. In his long teaching tenure, Prof. Bhalla worked as Professor and Dean, School of Social Sciences, JNU, New Delhi, Professor of Economics at Panjab University, Chandigarh, and an Associate professor at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.

Prof. Bhalla has written, edited and co-authored many books and articles. Some of his publications include: Globalisation and Indian Agriculture, Agriculture and the World Trade Organisation: Indian and French Perspectives; Suicides in Rural Punjab; Economic Liberalisation and Indian Agriculture; World Economy in transition: An Indian Perspective; and Condition of Indian Peasantry.

The main objective of the present study entitled Indian Agriculture since Independence is to review the performance of agricultural sector in India since Independence.

Indian agriculture which experienced a very low growth during the first half of the 20th century before independence recorded a significant acceleration in growth and productivity after independence. The growth performance was truly creditable after the new seed fertilizer technology matured during the nineteen eighties.

This book tries to identify the main factors which were instrumental in accelerating agricultural growth after independence. These included implementation of land reforms, large planned investments in irrigation and other rural infrastructure, and investments in the development of agricultural science research and technology, and extension services, and introduction of a positive price policy after the mid-sixties.

Some of the limitations of present pattern of growth are existence of large inter-regional variations in agricultural productivity and growth and large inter personal inequality as well as large incidence of poverty especially among the landless labour and marginal and small farmers. Another limitation is a tendency for input use efficiency to decline over time.

posed fresh challenges to Indian agriculture and agricultural workers. The book notes with concern the significant deceleration in agricultural growth in the post liberalisation period after 1991 and identifies the main causes for the deceleration. It also underlines the fact that in a globalising world, the real challenge for Indian farming sector is to increase its competitiveness through large investments in new technology and rural infrastructure. Another important challenge is to enable a very large number of small and marginal farmers to share the benefits of diversification and exports. The third challenge is to maintain food security for its population which has been so assiduously built over four decades.

The study also makes recommendations regarding the future course of action for reversing the recent trend of deceleration in agricultural growth and making trade liberalization work for the farmers in general and the small and marginal farmers, in particular.

The study is organized into sixteen Chapters. After the Introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 briefly discusses the natural endowments of India including its climate, soils, irrigation sources and land use. Chapter 3 is devoted to a review of changes in the agrarian structure in India. The Chapter undertakes a critical evaluation of implementation of land reform legislation in India and brings out the main changes in land relations since independence. Chapter 4 entitled Planning for Agricultural Growth briefly describes the nature of plan strategy adopted for accelerating agricultural growth in India during the planning period and the post-liberalisation period. Chapter 5 then reviews the growth of agriculture in India at the national and sate levels both during the planning period and the post liberalisation period.

**Contents and Sample Pages**