Problems of Indian agriculture and the support system

Detail

1. Why the problems differ from region to region

• The problems of Indian farming are region-specific. Two things shape them:
• Agro-ecological conditions: soil, rainfall, slope and water differ from place to place. A dry Rajasthan farm and a wet Assam farm face different risks.

• Historical conditions: land tenure, irrigation history and old revenue systems differ by region.

• Some problems are still common across India. NCERT (Class 12) lists seven: the monsoon, low productivity, debt, land reforms and holdings, lack of commercialisation, underemployment and land degradation.

2. Dependence on an erratic monsoon

• Erratic monsoon means the south-west monsoon is uncertain. It can come late, stop early, fail, or bring too much rain at once.
• About two-thirds of India's cropped area depends on rain, so a weak monsoon hits the farm directly.
• Drought and flood are the "twin menace" of Indian farming:
• Too little rain → crops wilt, wells dry up → output falls.

• Too much rain in a short time → fields are flooded → standing crops are lost and topsoil is washed away.

• Flash floods are sudden floods caused by very heavy rain in a few hours. They hit even the drylands of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2017. Dry soils soak up little water quickly, so heavy rain runs off and floods low ground.

• Climate change makes this worse: rain at the wrong time and more extreme events, such as heatwaves and cloudbursts (Class 7).

3. Low productivity

• Productivity means output per unit of input. Here it is yield per hectare of land and output per worker.
• Indian crop yields and labour output are lower than in the USA, Russia and Japan.
• Productivity is lowest in the rainfed drylands, where:
• there is no assured water;
• farmers use fewer fertilisers and high-yielding seeds because the risk is high;

• only one crop is possible in most years.

• Too many workers on small plots → each worker produces little → labour productivity stays low.

4. Financial constraints and agricultural indebtedness

• Agricultural indebtedness means farmers owe loans they cannot easily repay. The loans are taken to farm or to meet family needs.
• The cycle, step by step:
• Inputs such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, diesel and machines are costly.
• Small farmers have little savings, so they borrow from banks and institutions, or from moneylenders at high interest.
• A crop failure (drought, flood, pests) or a price crash means no income to repay the loan.

• The debt grows → a debt trap → in extreme cases, farmer suicides.

• NCRB data: the National Crime Records Bureau publishes these figures each year in its ADSI (Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India) report.

• In 2022, 11,290 people in the farming sector died by suicide: 5,207 farmers/cultivators and 6,083 agricultural labourers. This was 6.6% of all 1,70,924 suicides in India [5].
• Of the 5,207 farmer suicides in 2022, 4,999 were men and 208 were women [5].

• Leading states (2022): Maharashtra (37.6%), Karnataka (21.2%), Andhra Pradesh (8.1%), Tamil Nadu (6.4%) and Madhya Pradesh (5.7%) [5].

• Credit support (Class 10):

• Kisan Credit Card (KCC): a card that gives farmers cheap short-term loans for farm inputs.
• Grameen (rural) banks and cooperative societies lend to farmers so they need moneylenders less.
• PAIS (Personal Accident Insurance Scheme) covers farmers against accidents.

5. Weak land reforms and small, fragmented holdings

• Land reforms are government steps to share land more fairly. They include abolishing zamindari, protecting tenants, setting a land ceiling (the most land one owner may hold) and consolidating holdings (joining scattered plots into one block). Many states carried them out only partly.
• Fragmented holdings: each farm is split into many small, scattered plots. This happens because land is divided among heirs in each generation.
• Agriculture Census 2015-16: the average size of an operational holding was 1.08 hectares. Small and marginal farmers (less than 2 hectares) were about 86% of all holders [4].
• Tiny plots → machines, tube wells and fencing do not pay for themselves → low investment → low yield. (More detail in Section 10.)

6. Lack of commercialisation

• Commercialisation means growing crops mainly to sell in the market for profit.
• Most small farmers grow foodgrains (rice, wheat, millets) mainly for their own family. This is close to subsistence farming.
• Little surplus to sell → low cash income → little money to invest in better seeds or irrigation.
• Shifting to commercial crops (fruit, vegetables, cotton) needs irrigation, credit, roads and markets. Many small farmers lack these.

7. Agricultural underemployment

• Underemployment means people have work for only part of the time, or more people work on a farm than it needs. Disguised unemployment is when removing some workers would not reduce output.
• In unirrigated (rainfed) tracts, there is seasonal unemployment of 4-8 months a year:
• only one crop is grown in the rainy (kharif) season;
• after harvest, there is no water for a second crop;
• so farm workers sit idle or migrate to cities for work.

8. Degradation of cultivable land

• Land degradation is the fall in the soil's ability to grow crops.
• Causes include waterlogging, salinity and alkalinity in heavily irrigated areas (for example, Punjab and Haryana after the Green Revolution), overuse of chemicals, and soil erosion in drylands. (More detail in Section 12.)

9. Present-day challenges (Class 7)

• Tiny holdings: plots are too small to earn a good living.
• Costly machines: tractors and harvesters are too expensive for small farmers. Smaller, cheaper machines for small farms are now being made.
• Too little side income: income from allied activities (dairy, poultry, fisheries, beekeeping) is not enough.
• Climate change: rain at the wrong time and more extreme weather.
• Debt: loans that cannot be repaid.
• Leaving farming: some estimates say about 2,300 farmers quit farming every day.
• Feminisation of agriculture: women are over 75% of rural workers in agriculture.
• This happens because men migrate to cities for work, so women manage the farms.
• Yet women often do not own the land, which limits their access to credit and schemes.

10. Case: the Ganga basin under stress

• The Ganga rises at Gangotri glacier (Gaumukh), Uttarakhand, as the Bhagirathi. It joins the Alaknanda at Devprayag and flows through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. It enters the Bay of Bengal through the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta (the Sundarbans).
• Its fertile plain feeds over 500 million people.
• Four pressures act on the basin:

Pressure	What happens	Result for farming
Glacier melt	Himalayan glaciers shrink as the climate warms	More flow now, but less steady water in summer later
Diversion for irrigation	Canals take water out of the river	Less water downstream; weaker river flow
Groundwater pumping	Tube wells draw water faster than rain refills it	Water tables fall; wells must go deeper; costs rise
Dams	Dams hold back water and silt	Less silt reaches the plains and delta; floodplain fertility falls

11. Government support system

Type of support	Examples
Inputs	Subsidised seeds, fertilisers and machines; cheaper electricity for pumps
Information	Weather information (forecasts and advisories); Kisan Call Centres (free phone helplines for farmers); Farmers' Portal (a single website for farm information)
Research and training	Agricultural universities, Krishi Vigyan Kendras, new crop varieties
Soil	Soil Health Card (2015): a card that gives each farmer their soil's nutrient status and the right fertiliser dose
Risk cover	Crop insurance (PMFBY)
Prices and markets	Procurement at fair prices, i.e. MSP (Minimum Support Price: a price set by the government before sowing, at which it buys certain crops); cold storage; e-NAM (National Agriculture Market: an online trading platform that links mandis across India). For marketing, see the economy subject's note agri-marketing-msp-pds.
Credit	KCC, Grameen banks, cooperatives

12. Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY, 2016)

• PMFBY is the central crop insurance scheme. It pays farmers when crops fail.
• Risks covered: natural calamities (drought, flood, hailstorm, cyclone), pests and diseases.
• Premium paid by the farmer (a premium is the fee paid for insurance):

Crop type	Maximum farmer premium (% of sum insured)
Kharif food and oilseed crops	2%
Rabi food and oilseed crops	1.5%
Commercial and horticultural crops (annual)	5%

• Who pays the rest: the rest of the premium is a subsidy paid by the government. Since Kharif 2020, the Centre and states share it 50:50. For the North-Eastern states, the split is 90:10 [3].
• Voluntary since 2020: before 2020, the scheme was compulsory for farmers who took loans. After the 2020 revamp, joining became voluntary for all farmers [3].

13. Digital Agriculture Mission (2024)

• Approved by the Union Cabinet on 2 September 2024, with a total outlay of ₹2,817 crore, of which the central share is ₹1,940 crore [2].
• It builds three DPIs (Digital Public Infrastructure: shared digital systems that both the government and private services can use): AgriStack, the Krishi Decision Support System and Soil Profile Mapping [2].
• AgriStack is a farmer-centred digital system. The Centre and states build it together in a federated way, meaning each state keeps its own records [2]. It has three registries:
• Farmers' Registry: a unique farmer ID for each farmer, linked to their land records.
• Geo-referenced village maps: village land maps tied to real GPS locations.

• Crop Sown Registry, filled by the Digital Crop Survey, which records the crop sown on each plot every season.

• Krishi Decision Support System (KDSS): a geospatial system (one based on maps and satellite data) that brings together remote-sensing data on crops, soil, weather and water resources [2]. It helps with crop estimates, drought monitoring and insurance claims.

• Targets:
• digital IDs for 11 crore farmers: 6 crore in 2024-25, 3 crore in 2025-26 and 2 crore in 2026-27 [2];
• a Digital Crop Survey covering 400 districts in 2024-25 and all districts in 2025-26 [2].

Prelims Hooks

• NCERT calls drought and flood the "twin menace" of Indian agriculture. Flash floods hit the drylands of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan in 2006 and 2017.
• Seasonal unemployment of 4-8 months is typical of unirrigated tracts, not irrigated ones.
• PMFBY (2016) farmer premium caps: Kharif 2% · Rabi 1.5% · Commercial/horticultural 5%. Trap: rabi is lower than kharif.
• PMFBY has been voluntary for all farmers since Kharif 2020. The Centre-state premium subsidy split is 50:50, or 90:10 in the North-East [3].
• Digital Agriculture Mission (Cabinet approval 2 September 2024, ₹2,817 crore). Its three DPIs are AgriStack, the Krishi Decision Support System and Soil Profile Mapping [2].
• AgriStack's three registries are Farmers' Registry, Geo-referenced Village Maps and Crop Sown Registry. The KDSS is a separate DPI, not part of AgriStack [2].
• The Soil Health Card scheme began in 2015. PMFBY began in 2016.
• Agriculture Census 2015-16: average holding 1.08 ha; small and marginal holders are about 86% [4].
• NCRB ADSI 2022: farming-sector suicides were 11,290 (6.6% of all suicides). Maharashtra had the largest share (37.6%) [5].
• Women are over 75% of rural agricultural workers. This is the feminisation of agriculture.

Mains Points

• Causes of agrarian distress (GS-I/III): an erratic monsoon, small holdings (1.08 ha in 2015-16 [4]), costly inputs and weak markets combine into a debt trap. Crop failure turns debt into distress and suicides, which are concentrated in rainfed Maharashtra and Karnataka (NCRB 2022 [5]).
• Regional pattern: problems are sharpest in rainfed drylands. These have the lowest yields, one crop a year, 4-8 months of idle time and flash-flood risk. In the irrigated Green Revolution belt, the problems are land degradation and falling groundwater. In the Ganga basin, glacier melt, river diversion, groundwater pumping and dams stress the water supply for over 500 million people.
• Policy response, from risk to data: input subsidies, MSP procurement, KCC credit and PMFBY insurance (voluntary since 2020 [3]) cover risk. The Digital Agriculture Mission adds farmer IDs, geo-referenced maps and plot-level crop surveys so that schemes, insurance claims and advisories can be targeted better [2].
• Structural fixes needed: consolidate holdings, form farmer groups so small farmers can share machines, raise allied incomes (dairy, fisheries), and secure land titles for women farmers, given the feminisation of agriculture.