Strategy for Doubling Farmers’ Income

Abstract

All the nations facing problems of poverty, hunger and malnutrition will need to accelerate their agricultural growth for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially while aiming at no poverty, zero hunger and safe environment for all (Paroda, 2017). The Green Revolution not only led to food selfsufficiency but also helped to reduce the poverty and hunger. And yet, despite fivefold increase in food grains production, as against a fourfold increase in population, India still has around 250 million people who live in poverty and about 45 million children below five years of age who are malnourished. Moreover, after 50 years of Green Revolution, India is also facing the second generation challenges like decline in the factor productivity growth, poor soil health, loss of soil organic carbon, ground and surface water pollution, water related stress, increased incidence of pests and diseases, increased cost of inputs, decline in farm profits and the adverse impact of climate change. On the demographic front, India adds annually almost one Australia (about 15–16 million) to its population. Thus, any progress gets nullified by an overall increase in population. Also, around 48% of the population is currently dependent on agriculture and allied fields and the agriculture sector contributes around 17% to national gross domestic product (GDP). Moreover, the public sector capital investment in agriculture and rural development has declined from almost 20% during Green Revolution period to currently less than 10%. In this process, many States have remained deprived of growth and development. As a result, most farmers are not benefited especially since majority of them are smallholders and find agriculture not profitable any more.