Indicating a positive agriculture and allied sector growth of around 1 per cent, the mid-year economic review has called for a major push to agricultural reforms to further enhance the potential of this sector.
Besides relaxations in regulations that impede agro-exports, the review suggests sweeping changes in existing laws and policies concerning food management, agro-processing and marketing, especially futures trading.
It has also underscored the need for boosting the plantations sector comprising commodities like tea, coffee, rubber, pepper and medicinal plants.
Analysing the impact of the erratic monsoon on agriculture, the review points out that it has been confined, by and large, to unirrigated areas. The buoyant market arrivals and relatively higher procurement of rice after the kharif harvest shows that the projected 13 million tonne shortfall in rice output is only tentative.
The review indicates that there is need for restoring the emphasis laid earlier on expanding irrigation, especially through watershed development. More commodities need to be brought under futures trading regime.
