What is the issue?
- Madhya Pradesh (MP) has achieved a double digit growth, with an average agricultural growth rate of 13.9 % over the five-year period 2010-15 — delivering a cumulative growth of 92 % over the period.
- MP’s record stands out against the backdrop of an all-India growth rate for agriculture of less than 4 %.
What are the contributory factors?
- There has been a massive spread of irrigation, a sharp increase in power supply for agriculture, and better access to markets because of improved rural road connectivity. Yield levels have soared.
- The state’s crop acreage has increased, and more farmers are now able to do a third crop in the year.
- MP has become second only to Punjab in its contribution to the central wheat pool.
Does MP replicate its success in other fields?
- Unusually, though, MP has not been able to replicate its success in agriculture in the rest of the economy — not in industry, and not in services.
- This is most unusual as well as counter-intuitive because rapid growth of farm output should ordinarily lead to growth in transport and trade, finance and electricity use, not to speak of an increase in personal consumption.
- And in manufacturing too: Punjab’s Green Revolution was accompanied by the industrialisation of the state because of the production of agricultural implements, tractors, bicycles, textiles and garments.
- Because MP’s growth in agriculture has not been matched by other sectors, the state’s overall economic growth rate improved only marginally at first, and lagged the national average.
- Then it began to match the national growth rate; in the most recent years, MP has become the fastest-growing among the major states.
Is MP’s agricultural track record sustainable?
- In 2010, the state had the advantage of a low base in terms of both output and productivity (yield per hectare).
- But even now, despite the improvements of recent years, its numbers are below the all-India averages for crop yield, fertiliser use and other yardsticks; the granary states of Punjab and Haryana are of course well above the national average.
- So while MP has 10.4 % of the country’s gross cropped area, it accounts for only 8.6 % of the value addition in agriculture.
- That should mean the state still has headroom for growth but probably at a slower rate because it cannot expand its irrigation capacity and crop acreage as rapidly as in the past.
Source: Business Standard
