Pushing rural demand

Context: Although agriculture remains the only sector showing adequate resilience to COVID crisis, income generation and fair and transparent marketing of the farm produce is required to increase demand for other sectors.

Reasons for uninterrupted growth:

• Area Expansion: under pre-Kharif crops by over 35% due to sufficient residual soil moisture left by last year’s surplus monsoon.
• Adequate water stock: Water stock in the country’s main reservoirs is 70% higher than last year’s corresponding level.
• Input Increment: through higher fertiliser and 20% more sale of seeds for Kharif crops.
• Institutional support: Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) came out with an elaborate set of state specific advisories disseminated in local languages though all kinds of communication channels.

• Farmers are counselled to rely more on farm mechanization.

The fallout of Covid:

• Reverse migration: led to paucity of labour and consequent delay in harvesting and sowing of crops.
• Glitches in logistics: hampered the marketing and procurement of the Rabi crops.

Way Forward:

• Meticulous selection of situation specific crops, procurement of quality seeds and timely sowing are the basic mantras for good production. 
• Through efficient marketing channels rural demand can be rejuvenated that would help in the recovery of the manufacturing and services sector.