Farmville In The Real World

New apps can Revolutionise Indian farming. but developers have to deal with Legacy Issues and a funding crunch.

- Soumya Gupta

IN THE 1950S, some 60% of India’s workforce used to earn its income from agriculture. Agriculture then contributed 56% to the country’s GDP. In 60-odd years (till FY12, the latest year for which official data is available), the percentage of people earning from farming has come down somewhat to 49%, but the share of agriculture to GDP has fallen steeply to 16%. Clearly, something is not right with the farm sector. Remember, these falling numbers are after the Green Revolution (which was roughly the decade from 1968), which saw the government focus all its energies on ensuring food security. The Green Revolution was a success, but a lot went wrong after, chiefly poor government policies, made worse by bad weather conditions. Today, Indian agriculture is marked by underemployment and falling output, and there seems no sign of improvement. The conversation is limited to policy reviews and pro-farmer budgets, but there’s little improvement on the ground. In fact, things are more confused since agriculture is a State subject, and so policies, initiatives, and expenditure are not the same across the country. And despite the stated aim of several governments to eliminate the middleman, these continue to exploit farmers.

The government’s track record in educating farmers on increasing productivity and income leaves much to be desired. Between FY08 and FY12, it spent a minuscule 0.5% to 0.8% of the GDP on agriculture research and education. In fact, total expenditure (plan and non-plan) from the Centre and states fell 7.8% in FY12 over the previous fiscal. To look at the brighter side, this presents a huge opportunity for product-driven advisory companies that aim to bring farmers up to speed with the latest technologies.