Agriculture
Reforms for farmers
Describe the reforms made to help farmers.
The problem. India has farmed for thousands of years, but methods did not change enough. Even with irrigation, most farmers still depend on the monsoon and on natural soil fertility. Agriculture supports more than 60 per cent of the people, and the population keeps growing, so farming needed new technology and new institutions.
First steps after Independence.
- Abolition of zamindari: ending the big landlords' control.
- Consolidation of holdings: joining a farmer's scattered small plots into one piece.
- Cooperation and collectivisation: farmers pooling land and work.
Land reform was the main focus of the First Five Year Plan. Laws were made, but they were carried out weakly.
The 1960s and 1970s.
- The Green Revolution: a package of HYV seeds, fertilisers and irrigation to grow more grain.
- The White Revolution (Operation Flood): for milk.
But the gains went to only a few areas. So in the 1980s and 1990s a full land development programme followed, with both technical and institutional reforms.
Help for farmers today.
- Crop insurance against drought, flood, cyclone, fire and disease.
- Grameen banks, cooperative societies and banks that lend at lower interest.
- The Kisan Credit Card (KCC), for easy loans, and the Personal Accident Insurance Scheme (PAIS), which covers the farmer against accidents.
- Weather bulletins and farm programmes on radio and TV, so a farmer can harvest before a storm.
- Minimum support price (MSP), remunerative and procurement prices, so traders and middlemen cannot force prices down. Picture it: if growing a sack costs a farmer a thousand rupees and a trader offers eight hundred, an MSP above the cost means the farmer can still sell without a loss.
Bhoodan-Gramdan: the 'Blood-less Revolution'. Gandhiji called Vinoba Bhave his spiritual heir. After Gandhiji's death, Vinoba walked across India (a padyatra) to spread his message of gram swarajya. At Pochampally in Telangana, landless villagers asked him for land. He promised to speak to the government if they would farm cooperatively. Then Shri Ram Chandra Reddy rose and gave 80 acres, to be shared among 80 landless villagers. This was Bhoodan (gift of land). Later some zamindars gave away whole villages: Gramdan. Some owners gave land out of fear of the land ceiling law.
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