Need to raise income of small farmers: P K Mishra

MUMBAI: India needs a greater focus on farmers with small land holdings and formulate a strategy to increase their income in order to realise the goal of a Viksit Bharat, or a developed nation by 2047, said P K Mishra, principal secretary to the PM, while delivering the 19th C D Deshmukh Memorial Lecture here.

During the last decade, govts - both at the Central and state levels - have taken initiatives to assist small farmers, including small and marginal farmers, he said at the lecture hosted by RBI on Nov 28.

Speaking on the topic 'Transforming Small-holder Agriculture in India in the 21st Century: Challenges and Strategies', Mishra said many steps such as crop diversification, use of technology, climate-resilient crop varieties, storage to reduce post-harvest losses, direct farmer-consumer platforms, rural industrialisation and setting up of farmer producer organisations have been attempted.

"Our analysis reveals that there is a need to have greater focus on small-holders and formulate a strategy to increase their income," Mishra said. In this regard, he suggested diversification towards more profitable crops, livestock and fisheries; use of technology, especially focusing on small farms, among others. He said India's agriculture is dominated by small-holders and will continue to be so in the near future. There are 168 million operational holdings, of which small holdings of less than 2 hectares contribute to 88%.

During the five decades after 1970, farm size in US and Canada have increased from 157 and 187 hectares, respectively, to 178 and 331 hectares. Denmark, France, the Netherlands have seen a tripling of farm size since the early 1970s. In contrast, Mishra said the concentration of small-holdings has remained very high in Asia. "The disparity in per worker productivity or income between agriculture and non-agriculture is witnessed even in countries such as China, Vietnam and Indonesia as in India," he said.agencies