Book Description
Agriculture sector still dominates the Indian economic scene by providing livelihood to majority of the population. In most of the developing countries including India, agricultural growth is a precondition for economic development. Agriculture and allied activities contributed nearly 50 percent to India’s national income. Around 72 percent of total working population was engaged in agriculture. Inspite of an impressive rate of growth in the GCFA, its share in the GCF in the economy has been found to be declining. Although some improvement was observed in the share of GCFA in the GCF of economy in 2001-02, at 8.65 per cent, it again fell to 6.96 per cent in 2010-11. Capital formation is usually defined as an addition to the stock of productive equipment’s over time. The terms ‘capital formation’ and ‘investment’ are used interchangeably though have some distinction. But at the present stage of development of Indian agriculture, an assessment of capital formation in the agriculture sector may miss many important items of investment which are not accounted. This is because of the fact that, majority of Indian agriculturists being poor subsistence farmers for whom farming is not a business enterprise but a mode of living, Capital investments on the farm generally take place through small bits of acquisitions and activities which lead to an improvement in their productive capacity. Sustained investment on productive assets in agriculture is a pre-requisite for augmenting agricultural growth.
