Factory jobs are key to health of Indian farming
India did right by not opening its agri markets to US grains, fruit, dairy and fish. Agriculture sustains 42% of India’s population and employs 46% of workers. But as it generates less than a fifth of GDP, most farmers are poor. A recent Nabard report said farming households earn ₹13,661 per month, on average, of which actual farm income is just ₹4,476. The rest is income from other work. Pitting millions of such small farmers against the output of America’s highly mechanised farms would amount to throwing them under the bus. So, when Modi says, “For us, our farmers’ welfare is supreme,” we can’t agree more.
But it’s time farmer welfare moved beyond protectionism. The greatest good that govt can deliver to farmers is to free them from the yoke of subsistence farming. Only 2% of US population works in agriculture, 1% in Germany and UK, and 3% in Japan. In 1991, the number was 60% for China and 63% for India. China has brought it down to 22% – below the global average of 26% – but India is now in the league of Afghanistan (45%), N Korea (47%) and Myanmar (45%).
There’s no glory in subsistence farming. Population growth has fragmented landholdings to an unviable size. From 2.28ha in 1971, average farm size came down to 0.74ha by 2021. And as TOI reported last month, input costs and inflation have risen faster than earnings from most major crops. Yet, the share of workers in agriculture has grown from 44% in 2017-18 to 46% in 2023-24. That signals a failure of industry to create jobs at the required rate of 7.9mn every year. GOI must address this problem, not for Trump’s deal but to modernise India.
This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
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