Will agriculture revive Indian economy?
Economy of India is all set to contract this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic. There is only bright spot in this year’s economic story; the agriculture sector. A good winter crop harvest, adequate rainfall during monsoon and encouraging data on sowing on monsoon crops, all hoping towards a good performance by agriculture. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointed these sentiments while speaking at the India Ideas Summit organized by the US India Business Council.
“We have had a very good rabi crop. All of what were necessary, have been procured at reasonable price so that farmers are not left high and dry looking for purchasers. Now the estimate for kharif crop has also come. We can clearly see agriculture driving the revival” said minister.
UAE introduce National System for Sustainable Agriculture
The National Account Statistics (NAS) gives value of output for all crops at present and constant prices from 2011-12 to 2018-19. The value of output for crops can be taken as a proxy for farm incomes. In constant price terms, value of output of crops grew at the highest rate, 5.9%, in 2016-17.
This was not the year of fastest growth in nominal farm incomes, though. The highest nominal income growth was 15.3% in 2013-14, when the real income growth was 4.9%. In 2012-13, when real incomes grew at 0.6%, nominal incomes grew at 11.6%. This is more than the 11.1% nominal income growth in 2016-17, when real growth was the highest.
