Find out the five major problems of the agricultural sector in India.

India is fundamentally an agrarian economy. Agriculture is the backbone of the country with nearly 50% of the population being engaged in agriculture. But the productivity of the sector that employs this huge populace is very less. The contribution of the sector in national income is less than 20%. The problems in the sector are the main reason for this agricultural backwardness in the country. The main problems faced by the sector are:

• Heavy dependence on monsoon: Indian agriculture is largely monsoon irrigated. Proper irrigation facilities cover only about 33% of the cultivated area in the country. The crop production in other areas directly depends on rainfall. The performance of rainfall also has implications on the crop production. A bad south-west Monsoon will negatively affect the supply of water for irrigation. Also, the rainfall in Rajasthan and other dry and deserted areas is inadequate and highly undependable. The areas receiving high annual rainfall also experience considerable fluctuations. A scanty monsoon can ruin the crops, while excessive rainfall will also affect the crop yield.

• Low productivity: The per hectare total yield of the crops in the country is low in comparison to the international level. The yield of many crops including rice, wheat, cotton and oilseeds is very low in the country. The basic reasons for low productivity are the high pressure on land resources, lack of technological advancement, high underemployment and low labour productivity.

• Financial crunches: The modernisation and the commercialisation have increased the cost of agricultural production. Thus, the marginal and small farmers are being left out of the sector as they have very meagre or even no saving to invest in agriculture. To meet their credit requirements, most of the farmers have started to take loans and credit from various financial institutions and money lenders. This excessive borrowing has left them highly indebted.

• Improper implementation of land reforms: The land distribution in the country is highly unequal. The Indian peasants have always faced exploitation both before and after independence. For improving the conditions of the farmers, land reforms were legally enacted which focused on the redistribution of land from the rich zamindars to the poor peasants. But these reforms were not properly implemented due to lack of strong political will except in the states of Kerala and West Bengal. The influence that the rich landlords had on the government prevented them from the proper implementation of the reforms. Man zamindars also escaped the political ruling through many loopholes. Thus the failure of reforms also contributed to the backwardness of the sector.

• Fragmented land holdings: The landholdings in the country is largely fragmented. More than 60% of the ownership holdings have a size smaller than one hectare. Furthermore, about 40% of the farmers have a landholding size smaller than 0.5 hectares. The increasing pressure on population and the fragmentation of the landholdings due to the constant division of land by passing on to the next generation is continuously shrinking the average size of landholding. The fragmented land holdings make it uneconomic to carry out production. This makes the commercialisation of agriculture highly impossible.