Nexus between Agriculture Growth and Poverty Reduction in India

Abstract

Poverty is an issue of concern in developing countries as it remains the most elusive social evil to derail the economic progress of the country and social status of population. India remains fastest growing economy in the world, however efforts have to be made to improve the standard of living and social wellbeing of people. Agriculture as primary sector benefits the poor sections of the population by providing employment opportunities and play a key role in reducing poverty. The present study was conducted to assess the impact of agriculture growth on poverty reduction by using secondary data and sixteen states of India were purposively selected. An attempt was made to analyse the relationship between poverty, Agriculture Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per worker and Non-Agriculture Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per worker using pooled regression analysis. The findings of the study shows that, as every one per cent increase in Agriculture GDP per worker found to have reduced poverty by 0.11 per cent as against 0.04 per cent in Non-Agriculture GDP per worker. This shows that increase in Agriculture GDP per worker causes higher poverty reduction as compared to Non- Agriculture GDP per worker. This is true in case of agrarian economy like India as majority of population are dependent on agriculture for their sustenance. However, it suggested that the balanced mutual growth between various sectors of the economy will help to alleviate poverty in the country.