West Bengal Agriculture | WBCS Preparation: All Subjects - WBCS (West Bengal) PDF Download

West Bengal, primarily an agrarian state, constitutes only 2.7% of India's land area but sustains nearly 8% of the country's population. With 71.23 lakh farm families, 96% of whom are small and marginal farmers, the average landholding size is a mere 0.77 hectares. Despite these challenges, the state benefits from diverse natural resources and varied agro-climatic conditions conducive to cultivating a wide array of crops.

The Vision Of Agricultural Development

The Agricultural Department of the Government of West Bengal envisions comprehensive agricultural development. Despite the challenges, agriculture remains the predominant livelihood for rural communities in the state. The department is committed to doubling farmers' income by 2020 through enhanced access to skills, technologies, markets, and financial inclusion.
The State Agricultural Plan for the XII FYP embodies the following objectives to fulfill this vision:

• to ensure Quantifiable improvement in Production & Productivity
• to Reduce yield gap with focused interventions
• to maximize returns to the farmers from Agriculture & Allied sector
• to Augment Marketing interventions and export promotion
• to Promote Competitiveness in Agriculture and Allied Sector 
• to meet the challenges of Climate change and evolve mechanisms for effective drought and flood management.

Moving Forward:

To realize these objectives, the Agriculture Department collaborates closely with allied departments such as Animal Resources Development, Fisheries, Agricultural Marketing, Horticulture, Cooperation, Water Resources Investigation Development, Irrigation & Waterways, Forest, Sericulture, Food & Supplies, and WBCADC under the P&RD Department. Recent efforts focus on assisting small and marginal farmers by providing improved practices, quality inputs, crop diversification, front-ended subsidies for farm mechanization, enhancing irrigation through water conservation and watershed management, offering market intelligence, and improving the well-being of farmers from marginalized communities.
The Department has also launched an ICT-based agri-extension portal called MATIR KATHA (www.matirkatha.gov.in), serving as a dynamic platform for disseminating crop solutions to farmers at the farm-gate level.