Rural Development in India

• Rural development in India encompasses various challenging areas requiring initiatives.
• These areas include human resource development, land reforms, infrastructure development, and poverty alleviation.
• Providing farm and non-farm individuals with the necessary resources to boost productivity is essential.
• Creating diversification opportunities into non-farm activities, is important.
• Ensuring affordable access to healthcare, sanitation, and education should be prioritized for rural development.
• The share of agriculture in GDP has decreased, but the population dependent on it has not significantly changed.
• The growth rate of the agriculture sector slowed to about 3% per annum after reforms from 1991-2012.
• The GVA growth rate of agriculture and allied sectors was less than 1% during 2014-15.
• Inadequate infrastructure, lack of alternate employment, and increasing casualization impede rural development.

Credit and Marketing in Rural Areas

• Growth of the rural economy relies on consistent capital infusion for agriculture and non-agriculture sectors.
• Farmers often borrow to cover initial investments, family expenses, and other ceremonies.
• Moneylenders and traders exploited small farmers before 1969 through high interest rates and account manipulation.
• India adopted social banking and a multi-agency approach after 1969 to meet rural credit needs.
• NABARD was established in 1982 to coordinate institutions involved in rural financing.
• The Green Revolution diversified rural credit towards production-oriented lending.
• The rural banking structure includes commercial banks, regional rural banks (RRBs), cooperatives, and land development banks.
• Self-Help Groups (SHGs) address gaps in the formal credit system by promoting thrift and providing credit to needy members.
• SHGs empower women, though concerns exist about borrowings mainly for consumption.

Rural Banking - A Critical Appraisal

• Expansion of the banking system has positively impacted rural output, income, and employment, especially post-Green Revolution.
• It enabled farmers to access services, credit, and loans.
• Famines have become events of the past, and food security has been achieved.
• Formal institutions besides commercial banks have struggled to develop deposit mobilization and effective loan recovery.
• Agricultural loan default rates are high, with allegations of farmers deliberately refusing to repay loans.
• Expansion of the rural banking sector has slowed post-reforms.
• The Jan-Dhan Yojana encourages adults to open bank accounts, offering insurance coverage and overdraft facilities.
• More than 50 crore people have opened bank accounts, promoting thrift and efficient resource allocation.

Agricultural Market System

• Agricultural marketing involves assembling, storage, processing, transportation, packaging, grading, and distribution of commodities.
• Farmers faced issues like faulty weighing and lack of market information before independence.
• Government intervention aims to regulate private traders and improve marketing.
• One measure is regulating markets for orderly and transparent conditions, benefiting both farmers and consumers.
• Physical infrastructure facilities are needed, improvements should be made to the 27,000 rural periodic markets.
• Cooperative marketing helps farmers realize fair prices, exemplified by successful milk cooperatives in Gujarat.
• Lack of member coverage, marketing-processing links, and financial management have caused setbacks.
• Policy instruments include minimum support prices (MSP), buffer stocks by the Food Corporation of India, and PDS distribution.
• Private trade still dominates agricultural markets despite government intervention.
• Direct sales from farmers to consumers can increase incomes through channels like Apni Mandi and Rythu Bazars.
• National and multinational fast-food chains are increasingly contracting with farmers.

Diversification into Productive Activities

• Diversification involves changing cropping patterns and shifting the workforce to allied/non-agriculture activities.
• Diversification is needed to reduce reliance on farming and provide sustainable livelihood options.
• Lack of irrigation during the Rabi season makes gainful employment difficult, necessitating expansion into other sectors.
• Agriculture is overcrowded, and most of the workforce needs to find alternate employment in other non-farm sectors.
• Agro-processing, food processing, leather, and tourism are dynamic sub-sectors.

Animal Husbandry

• The mixed crop-livestock farming system is used in India with cattle, goats, and fowl.
• Livestock production stabilizes income, food security, transport, fuel, and nutrition.
• The livestock sector alone provides livelihood options to over 70 million small farmers and landless laborers.
• Poultry accounts for 61% of livestock in India.

Fisheries

• Fisheries serve as an integral and life-giving source for the fishing community.
• Fish production from inland sources contributes about 65% to the total value of fish production.
• Total fish production accounts for 0.9% of the total GDP.
• West Bengal. Andhra Pradesh, Kerala,Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu are major fish-producing states.
• Underemployment, lack of mobility, illiteracy, and indebtedness are major issues for fishing communities.
• 60% of the workforce in export marketing and 40% in the India marketet are women.
• Increased credit facilities for fisherwomen through cooperatives are needed for their working capital requirements.

Horticulture

• India has adopted horticulture crops.
• These include; fruits, vegetables, tuber crops, flowers, spices and medicinal plants.
• Horticulture provides means to provide food and address employment concerns
• The horticulture sector contributes nearly one third to the value of the horticulture output.
• India produces mangos, bananas and coconuts, and a number of spices
• India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables.
• Flower harvesting is an employment option for women in rural areas.
• Improved technology and veterinarian care and credit facilitates would enable sustainable livestock operations
• Production of livestock has greatly increased.

Other Livelihood Options & Sustainable Development

• There is broad consensus that information Technology can play an objective role in sustainable development.
• IT is used to predict where the most food insecure areas are
• It also can disseminate information on growing other crops
• IT can act as a positive change by releasing potential and knowledge.
• There is a growing awareness of chemical-based dangers.
• Conventional fertilizers are toxic.

Benefits of Organic Farming

• Organic farming restores and and enhances farming efforts
• Agriculture yields high returns on investment
• The produce grows income through exports
• Organic farming is a sustainable way forward for India
• More awareness for the industry is required
• The yields are lesser or require a large scale adoption

Conclusion

• Rural sector must continue to remain backward
• There must be more rural sectors to remain vibrant
• This includes; dairy & poultry
• Policies are essential to recognize the full potential