Should Agriculture Get Priority Over Industry in India - Essay, UPSC MAINS | Course for UPPSC Preparation - UPPSC (UP) PDF Download

Should Agriculture Get Priority Over Industry in India

structure

(1) Opening    —    India’s introduction.

(2) Body    —    Development of agriculture essential (i) To remove hunger (ii) Our strength for exports (iii) Surplus for industry.

—    Our geography and climate support agriculture. Industry is not competitive and difficult to create market.

—    Villages—Main occupation. Important for sustaining our democracy that they get justice.

—    But poor employment elasticity. Over exploitation, pressure on land, low productivity.

—    So, balanced growth. New agro-forest based units and small scaled cottage industries. Tanning, acqua-culture, mushroom, carp and prawn, sericulture, dying, horticulture, dairy etc. Small cement units, power plants, bio-fertilizer units, construction plants etc.

(3) Closing    —    Industry not ignored but agriculture improve.

India is a country of villages is a well known and well accepted fact. Agriculture is the main occupation of our villagers. Not only does agriculture support 70% of our population but it also contributes more than 40% to our GNP. Our geography and climate both are well suited to agriculture. Whether we look into our history 

and tradition or into our present economy, we can say with confidence that agriculture is our life line.

Vast tracts of fertile land, rich gene pool of crops, sufficient amount of water and reasonable level of skill available, all support the argument that agriculture should get high priority in India. Development of agriculture is also essential for a number of other reasons. First, it is important to remove hunger. Unless we provide sufficient and nutritious food to our citizens, we cannot expect efficiency, hard work and devotion from them. Hungry people are the most volatile section of a society and biggest danger to democracy.

Second season why agriculture needs to be given top priority is because it is our strong field, economically. In today’s highly competitive international market, it is very difficult for our industries to gain a foothold. This is because they lack latest technology, their products are poorer in quality and are expensive. On the other hand, our agricultural products like tea, dry fruits, tobacco, coffee, rubber etc. have held out their own in the international market. So they remain our biggest foreign exchange earners. Today when our structural reforms depend heavily upon our export performance, we must cash on our strengths. Also, to improve agricultural production, quality of products etc. we need little foreign help. On the other hand, for our industries we would require import of foreign technology that is both expensive and difficult to get. So under these circumstances, it becomes important that agriculture gets its due priority.

Thirdly for the industrial growth itself, it is essential that agricultural surpluses are created. We cannot have strong foundation for industries if our agriculture is laggard. Experiences in similar countries have shown that industrial growth was achieved on the solid foundation of agriculture. Also, agriculture is a big source of raw materials for many industries. Critical dependence of these industries, directly or indirectly, upon agriculture is another reason for giving more importance to it.

However, despite all the above reasons cited to support top priority for agriculture, we should realise a few facts. It is a well accepted fact that agriculture has a low employment elasticity. Too much labour intensive agriculture may prove uneconomical and mechanisation will reduce its employment generating capacity. So, while agriculture should remain most important economic sector, it cannot be relied upon to provide employment on a equally large scale. In order to improve our agriculture, land holdings should be consolidated, farm mechanisation should be done etc. All this will improve agriculture’s efficiency but erode employment base.

But this does not mean that industries will be the employment generators. In fact, to generate employment, new avenues will have to be searched and developed. Since agriculture in our country is the primary occupation and primary source of raw materials, therefore these new avenues will have to be agriculture dependent. This will further enhance the importance of agriculture.

So, new priority should be not just agriculture as an occupation but as a source base for a number of new fields like sericulture, horticulture, mushroom cultivation, animal husbandry, dairy farming, acquaculture including pisciculture, prawn cultivation and carp culture, leather industry, value added food products like ketchups, jam, syrups etc. All these fields have a very promising future as employment generators and also have tremendous export potential. But if these fields are to be developed, our agriculture should become modernised.

All our discussion till now shows that agriculture is so deeply imbibed in our country’s tradition and economy that we can ignore it only to our peril. It being the most important sector of our economy, it needs to be given top priority. However, all this does not mean that industries should be ignored. In fact, industries are sine quo non for our progress and prosperity. The discussion simply tries to prove that agriculture be given priority over industry to the extent that maximum employment is generated, balanced growth takes place and maximum economic growth is achieved. We must not copy western nations blindly because then we will remain neither agricultural nor industrial country. We should judiciously exploit our strengths and use it to our full advantage. We can become economic tiger even by (and perhaps only by) being primarily agricultural.