Deep Roots

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Supporting family farms for food, nutritional

and livelihood security: India’s story

Pravesh Sharma, Managing Director, Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium,

Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India

ndia presents a unique model of a large country,

hosting the second biggest population in the world,

which has achieved self-sufficiency in food produc-

tion entirely on the strength of its family-owned small

farms. Not only has food

production climbed from a

paltry 50 million metric tonnes (MTs) in 1950 to over 269

million MTs in 2013, the country was also the world’s top

exporter of rice in that year. This is in addition to large

shipments of wheat, cotton, soymeal, fruits, vegetables,

flowers and spices, besides dairy and meat products. In

fact, India enjoys a comfortable surplus on its agricultural

trade account, a testimony to the competitiveness of the

sector. Along the way, India has also emerged as the top

producer of milk, the second largest producer of fruits

and vegetables, and is among the top three producers of

cotton, wheat and poultry products in the world.

India’s success in leveraging the productive potential of more

than 130 million farm households to voluntarily coordinate with

and support the efforts of the national and local governments in

meeting the challenge of food self-sufficiency is an agricultural

success story with no parallel in the world. Unlike command

economies which operate in a totally different milieu, India’s

success has been achieved against the backdrop of a democratic

polity, private (read family) ownership of farms and concern for

sustainable use of natural resources. The resources, both human

and financial, mobilized for India’s agricultural growth have

been predominantly domestic, which is one of the reasons for

its sustainability over a period of more than six decades.

The centrality of family farms (or smallholder

agriculture

as it is called in India) in the strategy to achieve food self-

sufficiency, generate employment and reduce rural poverty

was recognized by India’s planners as they set out to revive an

exhausted agricultural sector emerging from the neglect of over

a century of colonial rule. These planners envisaged the crea-

tion of a comprehensive ecosystem which would address every

challenge of farming from the pre-production to the marketing

stage, thus enabling family farms to make choices based on

Image: Reuters Market Light India (RMLI)

Family farms are central to India’s strategy to achieve food self-sufficiency,

generate employment and reduce rural poverty

Food production in India has grown significantly since 1950, and the country

was the world’s top rice exporter in 2013

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