Fueling agricultural growth in India: Some reflections

Indian agriculture is experiencing under-performance despite increased attention given to it in the recent past. This paper analyzes the disparities in agricultural growth across Indian states and explores the determinants of agricultural growth, using Panel Corrected Standard Error approach. Analysis using beta convergence shows that the disparities across the state's agricultural growth are narrowing down for the period 1980-1981 to 2011-2012. However, to stimulate growth in the states where agriculture is lagging behind, a higher emphasis on increasing the area under irrigation, expenditure on agricultural research, area under fruits and vegetables, number of regulated markets, length of roads, cold storage facilities and institutional credit for investment purposes is needed. Private sector should be involved in public-private-partnership mode for improving the infrastructure in this sector.