Farm sector will continue to shine in 2020-21 but rural as a whole may not

The non-farm sector occupies a large part of rural income, and unless it grows substantially, just expecting farm growth to bring about rural sector revival is unreasonable, say experts

Just like in several other countries, in India too, agriculture and allied activities were the only areas that clocked a positive growth in the Covid-ridden quarter ended June this year.

As the countrywide lockdown closed down almost all economic activities, agriculture was among the few sectors that was spared and India’s farmers responded by delivering the highest ever rabi output, followed by record sowing of summer and kharif crops in the subsequent months.

The consequence of this all-time high output is that agriculture growth in the first quarter of 2020-21 was 3.4 per cent at constant prices, up from three