Much has to be sown in the country's agriculture before a bountiful harvest can be reaped There is a curious aspect to the official assessment of 9.3 per cent gdp growth that has been officially reported for the first quarter (April-June) for the current financial year. The farm economy is seen to have posted a 3.8 per cent increase during this period. Many economists in the government, as well as independent institutions, believe this to be an aberration or a temporary surge in an otherwise depressing story of Indian agriculture. Even by itself, a 3.8 per cent growth would be an exceptionally strong statistical estimation for Indian agriculture. Long term data has well established that farm output has been stuck in this country at a growth rate of 2.3 per cent over the past decade. The story is even worse for the Tenth Plan period (2002-07) where farm growth averaged just 1.87 per cent a year, at a rate just below that of the population growth. High level institutions such as the prime minister's Economic Advisory Council (eac) have suggested that this long-term trend would last for some time. Earlier this July, the eac in its review of the economic outlook for the current financial year had stated that the agriculture sector would miss its growth targets substantially. The review projected a 2.5 per cent growth for agriculture compared to the target of 4 per cent. Moreover, all through August, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has drawn attention to 'the crisis in agriculture'. Addressing a meeting of Congress party workers in Bangalore, Singh said, "One of the most worrying concerns for the government is the continuing reports of farmers being driven to suicide in various parts of the country. We have to make agriculture a viable proposition for farmers." He reiterated this in his address to the nation on Independence Day where he said, "Unless farmers prosper, the nation cannot prosper. I reassure our farmers that their welfare lies at the core of all our concerns." In fact during the same speech, Singh announced a special investment package of Rs25,000 crore, that would be provided in the next five years to tackle the most pressing problems confronting the country's agriculture sector. Of course, the prime minister's views reflect a very widely-held apprehension about Indian agriculture, accepted by all economic institutions in the country, as well as the entire spectrum of the political establishment. There is genuine alarm about Indian agriculture over two counts. First, there is a growing divergence between growth rates displayed by agriculture and the non-agricultural sectors (industry and services). Over: all gdp growth has accelerated from the 6 per cent threshold of the early 1990s to over 8 per cent in recent years. However, agriculture has failed to keep pace and its share in the gdp has been falling steadily; from just over 30 per cent in the early 1990s to about 18.7 per cent currently. Of course, the phenomenon of declining significance of agriculture is considered part and parcel of standard processes of economic development; accompanied by greater roles for industry and services. Agriculture accounts for barely 5-7 per cent of the economies of most developed countries, such as the US or France and Germany. The critical difference in the Indian situation is that proportion of the population dependant on agriculture for their livelihood has remained relatively unchanged during the past decade; at a threshold of just over 60 per cent during the past decade. Says a senior expert with the Planning Commission, "This directly means that the industrial and services sectors have been unable to siphon away surplus labour from the agricultural sector. It also implies that, at least in the medium term, the contribution of the agricultural sector is more than mere production of crops. It holds the key to poverty reduction and employment generation, as well as overall gdp growth." Indeed, economic policy-makers as well independent experts strongly feel that overall gdp trends might not be able to exhibit a relative autonomy from the state of agriculture for much longer. Thus, the Planning Commission