Countering the forecast of the Prime Minister's economic advisory council (EAC) that agricultural growth is likely to slide to just 2 per cent this year, Abhijit Sen, member of the Planning Commission, said today that agriculture will almost certainly grow by at least 3 per cent, if not by 4 per cent.

Just two weeks ago, in its Economic Outlook Report for 2008-09, the EAC had predicted agricultural growth to be around 2 per cent, down 2.5 percentage points from the 4 per cent growth registered in the previous year.

Addressing the gathering at the unveiling of the book Reforming Indian Agriculture, Sen said that the past few years have been rather good for Indian agriculture despite no major technological breakthroughs or any major progress on the crop diversification front.

He also added that the rate of growth in the output of foodgrains, oilseeds and fibre crops was more than that for agriculture as a whole, implying that diversification wouldn't have made too much of a difference.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, defended the government’s decision to ban or put restrictions on the exports of a number of agricultural items , he said that these steps had to be taken to absorb a sudden shock in world prices.