Doubling Farmers Income by 2022

Doubling Farmers Income by 2022

Green revolution raised India’s agricultural output and improved food security. However, it did not address the issue of low farmers’ income which led to distress and poverty to farmers. The idea of doubling farmers’ income by 2022 was given by PM in one of his speech in 2016.This led to the creation of Ashok Dalwai committee which gave recommendations regarding the same.

Indian agriculture faces many challenges which are major hindrances in increasing farmers’ income. Marginal land holding (average share holding is 0.1 ha) is the reason for low produce and high cost of input. It also leads to subsistence farming. Agriculture in India is largely rain fed which makes it uncertain to crop production and fluctuation in income of farmers. Cartelization and regional market forces keep prices low which makes farmer take below average prices for their produce. Low productivity of land and irrigation are also the reasons for low income from farming. These challenges have prevented agriculture from achieving its true potential. Indeed the government has taken some measures to solve these problems like e-NAM to hinder cartelization, PMKSY (krishi sinchai yojana) to solve irrigation issues, PMFBY (Fasal Bima Yojana)  for crop insurance against uncertain situations. However these are not enough to solve the agrarian crisis and increase farmers’ income.

Some measure should be taken in this regard like a comprehensive land leasing law can solve the problem of marginal land holding. Cluster based approach can help in reducing input cost. Focusing on allied sectors and non-farm activities can also increase farmers’ income by at least 30% (according to Dalwai Committee).State specific measures can also proved to be useful in this.

The government’s measures like Operation Green to handle price fluctuation, increasing MSP of kharif crops by 1.5 times and extending Kisan credit cards to fisheries and animal husbandry sector etc are indeed right steps in this direction but ultimately all depends on the implementation of programmes which is upto the states and so they have to work proactively. Doubling farmers’ income by 2022 is indeed a mammoth task but it is also the need of the hour and as said by MS Swaminathan “If agriculture fails, everything else will fail”.