Farm sector records lowest growth in 5 yrs at 0.2%

The country's agriculture sector recorded the lowest growth in five years, at 0.2 per cent, in fiscal year 2009-10 due to widespread drought. Agriculture and its allied sectors had grown at 1.6 per cent in 2008-09.

However, dismal as the farm sector's growth seemed to be, it was not as low as expectations set for the fiscal. It had grown by 0.2 per cent, though the earlier estimation -- arrived at by the Central Statistics Organisation -- had pegged it at a contraction of 0.2 per cent.

Chief statistician Pranab Sen said, "As far as agriculture is concerned, the data keeps changing. When we came up with advanced estimates, we had practically no figures for rabi (winter) crops."

"Now that we have the sowing figures for rabi, we have better growth figures. However, this is partly because of the upward revision of kharif (summer) crop estimates," he added.

The upward revision in the agriculture sector's growth was mainly due to a slight improvement in the kharif production of rice, wheat, cotton and sugarcane -- even as drought hit nearly half the country.

According to the third advance estimate, rice output in 2009-10 improved to 89.31 million tonnes from the earlier estimate of 87.56 million tonnes, while wheat production rose to 80.98 million tonnes from 79.06 million tonnes.

Similarly, the sugarcane production estimate was revised upward to 274.66 million tonnes from the earlier projection of 251.27 million tonnes. Cotton output estimates improved to 22.83 million bales, from 22.31 million bales of 170 kg each.

The weak monsoon had impacted farm production mainly in the third quarter of the last fiscal, as it declined by 1.8 per cent. In 2008-09 also, farm production had contracted in the third quarter -- by 1.4 per cent.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said, "(in) Third quarter, monsoon had adverse impact (on agriculture)."

In the fourth quarter of last fiscal, agriculture and allied sectors grew by 0.7 per cent against 3.3 per cent a year ago. While it expanded by 0.9 per cent against 2.4 per cent in the second quarter, it grew by 1.9 per cent against 3.2 per cent in the first one.

The agriculture sector contributed around 17 per cent to the country's total economy in the 2009-10 fiscal.