India Must Diversify Agriculture

NEW DELHI - Jul 7/04 - SNS -- India must put more effort into increasing yields and diversifying the range of crops grown in order to achieve more than 4% annual growth in agricultural output, according to the country's Economic Survey for 2003-04.

The report released by the finance department stressed "the need to realize the full potential of agriculture at the earliest through backward and forward linkages with the rest of the economy."

However, the report also said subsidies are a threat to reaching this goal and the country’s food security system. The Economic Survey for 2003-04 has noted this while pointing out that the food subsidy has grown over ten times since the early nineties to reach the massive level of 25,160 crore rupees in 2003-04.

Apart from high Minimum Support Price (MSP), factors such as high level of State levies on procurement, high cost of borrowing to FCI, highly centralized system of procurement and distribution, and management inefficiencies which have been adversely affecting the economic cost of foodgrains to FCI have to be addressed expeditiously.

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