India’s Agricultural Products Exports: An Overview

Abstract

India’s agricultural growth during 61years period of Independence remains impressive at 2.7 percent per annum. Around two – third of this production growth is aided by crop productivity gains. The need based strategies followed since independence and intensified since mid – sixties mainly focused on feeding the growing population and making the country self sufficient in food production. Agricultural growth, measured as the annual rate of growth in net domestic product, increased from 1.9 percent per annum before the Green Revolution period (1950-1951 to 1966-1967) to 2.3 percent during the first phase of the Green Revolution (1966-1967 to 1980-1981). The growth rate accelerated further to 3.1 percent during the second phase of the Green Revolution (1980-1981 to 2000-2001). At the same time, the share of agriculture in total GDP has fallen from about a little over half in the early 1950s to around one-fourth in the late 1990s. Similar changes have occurred in the country’s export basket as well. The share of agricultural exports in total exports of the country fell from 44 percent in early 1960s to about 14 percent in the late 1990s