There were 141.1 million hectares of net sown area as per the Ministry of Agriculture in 2000-01. There were 127.3 million cultivators and 106.8 million agriculture labourers as per the Census of India. Do the math, and the low area per farmer is quite apparent. And it is falling rapidly for many reasons. Farmers are increasing, and of course requirements for non-agriculture uses are reducing the amount of arable land available. The Nandigram problem is just one outcome of the difficulties of rapid growth.

There are many aspects to this problem. The first is the fear that it has to do with ‘prime agriculture land’. There is no doubt that cities tend to be located near rivers and water bodies, and much of the land around many, if not most, cities tends to be of the highly productive variety. Industrial and other commercial activities (that require to be close to large concentrations of people) will need to access more and more such land close to cities. Therefore, yes, increased economic growth will create pressures to convert agriculture land to non-agriculture land around cities. And some, if not a large part, of this will be ‘prime’.

The second is that because of this India’s food security would be at stake. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Indian agriculture is currently among the lowest in terms of productivity (yields), and this productivity is bound to increase in the near future. Any loss in agriculture land would be more than offset by agriculture productivity increases. Space constraints prevent me from giving international yield comparisons across a range of agri-commodities.

... contd.