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Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience

Received: 29 September 2020     Accepted: 3 November 2020     Published: 29 April 2021
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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.

Published in Advances in Applied Sciences (Volume 6, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12
Page(s) 14-18
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Perishability, Production, Malnutrition, GDP

References
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[2] Franklin Jones COVID-19: Lessons from past epidemics, natural disasters [Blog] Down to Earth 2020 May 15.
[3] George Rapsomanikis The economic lives of smallholder farmers. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Rome, 2015.
[4] India at a glance FAO.
[5] Kekane Maruti Arjun. Indian Agriculture- Status, Importance and Role in Indian Economy. International Journal of Agriculture and Food Science Technology. Volume 4, Number 4 (2013), pp. 343-346.
[6] KlausHubacek, DaboGuan, AnamikaBarua Changing lifestyles and consumption patterns in developing countries: A scenario analysis for China and India. Futures Volume 39, Issue 9 Pages 1009-1140 (November 2007).
[7] Lal, R. Home gardening and urban agriculture for advancing food and nutritional security in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Food Sec. 12, 871–876 (2020).
[8] Madhurya. P, M Latha, K Mosha and Ch Sujani Rao Precision Agriculture The Andhra Agricultural Journal Volume 67 Spl: (IARD-2020): 37-41.
[9] Madhurya. P Robotics in agriculture. Challenges and opportunities of profitable agriculture, APGSNC, 4-04., page: 143, January 30-31, 2020.
[10] Pallavi Shukla, Kathy Baylis and Hemant Pullabhotla. Using Improved Storage Technology to Reduce Food Insecurity and Postharvest Losses in India; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, 2019.
[11] Prem Lal Birla, Dr. Pratap Rao Kadam. An Analysis of Agriculture sector in Indian Economy. Journal of the Gujarat research society. Vol 21, No 16, 2019.
[12] Pulist S. K., Staff Training and Development in Open and Distance Learning: A Trainers’ Perspective. International Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences April 2017, Volume 5, Issue 4, ISSN 2349-4476.
[13] Rawat, Nidhi, Neelam, Kumari, Tiwari, Vijay K, Dhaliwal, Harcharan S. Biofortification of cereals to overcome hidden hunger N. Plant Breeding. 2013; 132 (5): 437-445.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Poondla Madhurya, Mekala Latha, Challa Sujani Rao, Sunkara Prathibha Sree. (2021). Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience. Advances in Applied Sciences, 6(2), 14-18. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12

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    ACS Style

    Poondla Madhurya; Mekala Latha; Challa Sujani Rao; Sunkara Prathibha Sree. Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience. Adv. Appl. Sci. 2021, 6(2), 14-18. doi: 10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12

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    AMA Style

    Poondla Madhurya, Mekala Latha, Challa Sujani Rao, Sunkara Prathibha Sree. Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience. Adv Appl Sci. 2021;6(2):14-18. doi: 10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12,
      author = {Poondla Madhurya and Mekala Latha and Challa Sujani Rao and Sunkara Prathibha Sree},
      title = {Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience},
      journal = {Advances in Applied Sciences},
      volume = {6},
      number = {2},
      pages = {14-18},
      doi = {10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.aas.20210602.12},
      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.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Indian Agriculture During the Pandemic: Impact and Resilience
    AU  - Poondla Madhurya
    AU  - Mekala Latha
    AU  - Challa Sujani Rao
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    Y1  - 2021/04/29
    PY  - 2021
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12
    T2  - Advances in Applied Sciences
    JF  - Advances in Applied Sciences
    JO  - Advances in Applied Sciences
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    EP  - 18
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2575-1514
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.aas.20210602.12
    AB  - 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.
    VL  - 6
    IS  - 2
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Angrau

  • Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Angrau

  • Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Angrau

  • Department of Agronomy, Agricultural College, Bapatla, Angrau

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