President cautions not to ignore farm sector

New Delhi, Dec 11 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today cautioned that it would be "fallacious" to give less importance to the agriculture sector just because its share in the country's GDP has been on the decline. Mukherjee underscored that it was vital that the farm sector grows at a much faster pace for alleviating poverty, promoting inclusive growth, ensuring food security, create employment and boost rural income. "I understand that the contribution of agriculture to the country's GDP is declining and is lower than services and industry sector today. But I would exhort you to resist any temptation to be persuaded by some arguments to give only proportionate importance to this sector. Nothing could be more wrong," he said at a CII conference. "Giving agriculture the importance in proportion to its contribution to GDP may be as fallacious as attaching to the heart the importance in proportion to its weight in the human body," he observed. The President said the share of agriculture sector to the country's GDP has declined to 15.2 per cent during 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) from 23.4 per cent in the 9th Plan. Blaming vagaries of monsoon for wide variation in farm growth in the last 15 years, he emphasised the need to "liberate the sector from the fetters of nature to extent possible like the advanced nations have done." Mukherjee said that the agri-gowth rate of 2.1 per cent in the first half of this financial year is "not very encouraging", but he expected the second half would be better. Stating that the agriculture sector has adopted some element of next generation revolution, he said, "I would like to envision a second Green Revolution in agriculture that is more hollistic and widespread." To achieve targeted 4 per cent growth in 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017), Mukherjee said the emphasis should be placed on raising yields through use of hybrid seeds, improving seed replacement rate, better water management and balanced use of fertilisers and pesticides. Mukherjee said the agriculture growth in the 11th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) was also driven by higher prices, "but this scenario has undergone a change in the 12th Plan period as demand for major crops is projected to decline. Although the aim of self-sufficiency has been realised as a result of the first green revolution, but there are some lessons to be learnt from that, he added. "The excessive use of chemical fertilisers became unsustainable in the long run as it gradually led to the decline in productivity. The use of high yielding seeds was confined to only foodgrains. Thus, the revolution touched only a limited percentage of India's total arable land," he noted. Stating that India has not taken food security for granted, he stressed that there is increasing realisation that high farm growth would be catalyst for rural development in the country. "Thus, another Green Revolution is definitely a necessity of the times." Given the gargantuan task ahead, Mukherjee said it is imperative that the government should seek the right partnerships to involve private sector in this area. Innovation through research and technology development, ensuring protection to farmers from uncertainty of weather and market, reducing post-harvest wastages, effective use of information technology are need of the hour, he added.