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Preliminary Exam CSAT January 03

1. For the past one and half decade as Indian industry went places, recording a hearty rate of growth, the story of Indian agriculture remained unchanged. Successive governments have put in plenty of effort but the results were still weak. This is surprising as in the same period except for 2008, the monsoon went through one of the longest periods of regular annual rainfall pattern. Despite this favourable initial condition, the rate of growth of the agriculture sector has been low. The one spoilsport in the agriculture story was of course the stagnant rate of public investment. The state, hamstrung by vastly competitive demands on its resources, initially and also by the realisation that public investments in irrigation and others were not yielding quick results, moved the money elsewhere.

But now, in the aftermath of the global meltdown, the consensus of informed opinion has switched to the view that consumption demand from rural India has been the great stabilizer for industry. The impetus for that rural consumption demand has to come from rising productivity in agriculture. In turn rising productivity can only come if adequate investment is made at all stages of agricultural operation. Not surprisingly the push for these improvements has come from one of the longest spells of rise in prices of food products - the persisting inflation in food that has just begun to soften. So, we have a fortuitous combination of circumstances that, if harvested, can create huge value upgradation for the Indian agriculture sector and in turn for the entire economy. The components of these improvements are well known like seed technology, better management of post-harvest operations like preservation of produce in warehouses and of agricultural marketing.

So even though it may seem of repeated, the time for an agricultural revolution is here. Probably the most important element of that will be the plans for a second green revolution. The government has already indicated that it is very keen to start it off in the dryland areas of the south and in the rich but weakly tapped soils of the eastern Indian states. A debate is already raging in the country, if such a rise in productivity will also necessarily entail a movement towards genetically modified crops. The need of adequate grains to feed a vastly rising population is immediate and so the decision has to be made carefully, as the government has indicated. The associated issues are of infrastructure to run the crops from the farm gates to the market. Most of the states have a poorly developed set of roads and even less carriers to undertake the task. In this context the need for refrigerated trucks and cold storage chains across the country is an immense investment possibility as well as the need of the hour. The government has to also make changes in the law to allow for the trading of warehouse receipts and that of the agricultural produce marketing act that makes transport of most agricultural produce across state boundaries, a crime. The list is large, the need is to start moving right now.

What according to the passage is/are the reason(s) for the weak performance of Indian agriculture in the past decade?

The monsoon has been weak during the decade especially during 2008.

Successive governments have not put m enough efforts to boast the performance of agriculture.

Stagnant public investment in the agriculture sector of India. Select the correct answer using the code given below:

(a) Only 1 and 2 (b) Only 2 and 3 (c) Only 3 (d) All 1, 2 and 3

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