FM hopes for robust farm growth at 6%

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today began pre-Budget consultations, expressing hope that the agriculture and allied sector would grow by 6 per cent this fiscal, a projection which should ease government's worries on food inflation of over 18 per cent.

"In the current year with normal monsoons, we are looking at a significant rebound in agriculture and allied sector growth at about 6 per cent," an official statement said.

It said that Mukherjee hoped for a sustained growth in the farm sector.

The consultations for the Budget 2011-12 began with the Finance Minister meeting different stakeholders in the agriculture sector.

The delegation included farm economists like Ashok Gulati of global thinktank IFPRI and farmers' leaders, including Sharad Joshi.

Thanks to good monsoon this year, the agriculture and allied sector, which also comprises forestry, fishery and poultry, grew by 3.8 per cent in the first half of the 2010-11 fiscal, against a mere 1 per cent a year-ago.

However, due to steep rise in vegetables, fruits, milk and egg prices, food inflation crossed 18 per cent for the week ended December 25 bringing the government under attack and pinching the household budget.

Mukherjee said much needs to be done in the farm sector. For attaining and sustaining double digit economic growth, Indian agriculture and allied sector have to grow 4 per cent annually.

Some of the strategies followed in the previous Budgets have started yielding results, he said.

"There is much that needs to be done to accelerate the pace of growth in agricultural sector. Already, some good results have been observed in respect of production of pulses in the current year," the statement quoting the minister said.

Pulses production is pegged at 16.5 million tonnes in 2010-11 crop year, against 14.59 million tonnes last year.

The investment in farm sector has grown, as evident from gross capital formation in relation to GDP increasing from 2.6 per cent in 2004-05 to 3.4 per cent in 2008-09.