Record Food Grain Production but Farmers’ Distress has Worsened
Asia News Agency
According to the Second Advance Estimates of Production of Foodgrains for 2021-22, released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, India’s total foodgrains production will cross 316 million tonnes. This is 1.7 per cent higher than the total production the year before. But what truly captures the remarkable growth in India’s farm production, writes The Indian Express “is the stark trend in the past six years: Foodgrains production has gone up from 252 million tonnes in 2015-16 to 316 million tonnes now; rising every single year. Contrast this with the performance in the six years preceding 2016-17 — production fluctuated between 244 and 265 million tonnes.”
Diverging trends: However, “there are diverging trends.” Some coarse grains cereals are expected to see a decline in output; rice production is expected to increase by almost 3 per cent; wheat production is expected to go up by 2 per cent; pulses are expected to grow by almost 6 per cent; oilseeds are expected to grow of 3.3 per cent; among the key cash crops, sugarcane is expected to see a jump of over 4 per cent while cotton production may decline by over 3 per cent.
Policy concerns
There are two policy concerns emerging from this data. Food inflation is one. For example, wholesale inflation has been 10.5 per cent in wheat, 14.5 per cent in maize, over 23 per cent in oilseeds and 45 per cent in cotton. The other concern would be to ensure improved remuneration for farmers. The ironic — and troublesome — aspect of India’s sustained increase in farm production in the past 5-6 years, concludes the paper “has been the concurrent rise in farmers’ distress as the terms of trade have worsened.”
