Basic Knowledge in Agriculture #16

Greetings my dear friends of Steemit and Steem-Agro

What are the importance of Agriculture in this modern life.

India has the highest net cropped area in the world followed by the US and China.

India employs 58% population in agricultural sector. The sector contribute 17.8 % of Gross Domestic Product.

The soaring growth of agriculture due to 'Green Revolution' is now slowly being shadowed by the industrial and services sector. Farmers in India are also facing numerous challenges such as rising input cost, absence of insurance and credit, poor supply chain management, etc. The consistent high growth of the agriculture sector is a prerequisite for India to become a global economic superpower.

The British during the colonial period promoted more cash crops, instead of food crops for their own profits. The decades of ignorance of the agriculture sector under colonial rule made the agriculture sector a major challenge for India after independence.

To address the immediate food security issue, India imported foodgrains from the US under the 'PL-480' scheme. -10 million tonnes in 1966. Amidst US's arm twisting and excessive droughts, the then Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri adopted 'food self-sufficiency' as his top policy priority.

He gave the slogan of 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' and launched 'Green Revolution' under the supervision of Indian geneticist M.S. Swaminathan. Under the Green revolution, High Yielding Variety (HYV) seeds were introduced in India for the first time These HYV seeds were drought and pest resistant. The Green Revolution was first launched in Punjab, Haryana, and Tamilnadu for these regions had adequate irrigation facilities. The revolution also focussed upon developing the irrigation system and other productivity factors such as fertilizers, pesticides and weedicides, etc. The green revolution substantially increased the agricultural productivity for wheat and rice in India. Due to the successful implementation of the green revolution, India became a food surplus country from a food deficit country.

India is the World's Largest producer of Milk, Pulses, Spices. India is the World's 2nd Largest producer of Rice, Wheat, Cotton, Sugarcane, Fruits, Tea and Vegetables.

Improvements in agricultural sector can boost indian economy very strong.

According to Census 2011, 85% farmers have less than 2 hectare landholdings. The overwhelming dominance of moneylenders has severe socio-economic implications for the farmers.

According to the Parsee Committee report:

Lack of Adequate Storage leads to 6.6% Food Wastage.

Absence of Cold Storage leads to 20% Wastage of Fruits and Vegetables.

The 'Soil Health Card' Scheme was launched in 2015 to help farmers in deciding the amount of fertilisers to be used. To increase the area under irrigation, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana was launched with the objective of "Harr Khet ko Paani".

e-Nam Programme was launched with the objective of "One Nation, One Market" to provide pan India access for farmers, rather than a dedicated local APMC market.

PM Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Yojana was launched to realize better prices & Crop Diversification.

Agriculture Export Policy was launched in 2018 with a target of achieving $60 Billion worth of agricultural exports by 2022.

Due to poor awareness about the schemes, most of the agricultural schemes are not implemented properly.

We need to focus on the following areas of agriculture sector to comply the modern life.

FOOD PROCESSING SECTOR

India is the 2nd largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, but hardly 2% of the total produce is being processed.

Despite having a large livestock population, only 1% of meat is added to Value Added Products.

Also, as per NITI Ayog, India faces a massive loss of more than 10.282 Billion USD in post harvest.

EXPORT ORIENTATION

India's agriculture export supply-chain is severely poor as compared to other countries. According to the WTO Trade Statistics, 2017, While China holds 4.1% of world agri food exports, India shares only 2.27% of it.

NON-FARM SECTOR

Allied Sectors such as Dairy, Cattle Rearing and Fisheries can provide alternate sources of income to farmers.

HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY

Precision Farming or Drip Irrigation, Drones & Sensors can help to reduce the input cost of farming. Climate specific agriculture & Collective farming can also boost agri production in the country. The crop diversification makes agriculture 'sustainable' by bringing several advantages to farmers. Crop diversification helps farmers against pest attack and provides security against the weather aberrations. The crop diversification also helps to arrest the excessive nutrients and water loss. The crop diversification also addresses issues of cropping patterns in non suitable areas. For eg: the farmers in water scarce regions may adopt food grain crops instead of water intensive crops.

The farmers are encouraged to adopt more innovative means such as aquaponics which are collective activities of aquaculture and agriculture. Other than these, innovative measures such as 'plantscapers' can also be adopted which will promote urban agriculture reducing the pressure on traditional agriculture.

Share your personal Agricultural Experience( might be planting/farming or any Agricultural activity), with photos to back you up.

I'm not a pro farmer or gardener but we have some self grown plants like bananas. As it is self grown most of the bananas would have seeds. We generally harvest the banana flowers which are very rich in iron.

We also have a coconut plant which we normally harvest once in a year. There are also few flowering plants. I have germinated one special Mango seed and planted the sapling in the ground. We also have a fruit bearing jackfruit tree which we harvested in last session.

Thank you for reading my post.

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@sabbirakib
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