Evolving role of the private sector in agriculture

Indian agriculture has witnessed significant transformation over the past few decades.

The changes range from new entrants into the sector to new and improved technologies, to farming becoming more mechanised, to weather, soil and environmental changes, to new markets and demand, and most importantly to agriculture evolving from just a way of life to a full-fledged business — agribusiness.

These changes have unfortunately not been accompanied by changes on the institutional and policy front. Even in instances where amendments have been introduced on the policy front they have not necessarily been accompanied by changes on the organisational and institutional fronts.

This disconnect has limited the growth potential of this vital sector.

The state research and extension systems are not sufficiently robust and the lack of regional strategic thrust as well as field-level operational flexibility has restricted the potential of the Indian agricultural growth story.

There is an overlapping of the roles and responsibilities of the central and state institutions.

On the legislative, constitutional, policy and financing/funding front, the Centre seems to play a dominating role and is the main decision-making authority in terms of agricultural policies, programmes and schemes which are designed primarily to have direct or indirect impact on state agriculture.