Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience

Abstract

The Indian agriculture and allied sector is not an exemption in facing the unprecedented conditions occurring due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the sector is resilient enough to have a setback and show its economic prominence. Agriculture and allied sector has shown a 3.1% GDP growth during the pandemic even though the sector involves manual outdoor operations on a daily basis. The food grain output was recorded as the highest ever (295.67MT) during 2019-20. Out of the highest contributing crops, rice has shown the highest increase in production (9.27 m tons) followed by pulses and Cotton, whereas the remaining crops has shown an average increase of 3.52 million tons. In spite of the perishability of the agriculture goods, harvest is being wasted at markets, Industrial godowns and on-crop wastage has also become a serious problem due to less marketable time, poor storage techniques and workforce. On the flip side, Due to the increase of unemployment in the country the malnutrition has become much concern due to lack of purchasing power of citizens. But the farmers in the country normally have less profit margin of over 10-12% of the cost of production. As South India is the most hard hit of diseases caused due to undernutrition, The Agribusiness and agri production, supply chain systems and allied sectors should allocate properly the increased production with necessary postharvest and processing measures and increase trade opportunities for increasing value added in order to achieve nutritional security and increase profit margin of farmers and thereby to fight the effect of pandemic on people.