Agricultural Growth

• Agricultural growth has been fairly volatile over the past decade, ranging from 5.8% in 2005-06 to 0.4% in 2009-10 and -0.2% in 2014-15.
• In the recent past, growth rates of agriculture have been fluctuating at 1.5% in 2012-13, 5.6% in 2013-14, (-) 0.2% in 2014-15, 0.7% in 2015-16 and 4.9% in 2016-17 (PE).
• The rise in per-capita agricultural production has gone a long way toward easing pressure on meeting food and nutrition security of the country. Unfortunatley, however, growth in agricultural output is characterized by fluctuations, each high growth period is followed by a phase of low growth.
• This cyclical pattern has reflected itself in annual growth rates of approximately 3% in the 10th Plan, 4% in the 11th Plan and just 1.7% during the first three years of the 12th Plan.

The uncertainties in growth of agriculture are explained by the fact that shocks emanate mainly from deficiency in rainfall since 55% of agriculture in India is rainfall dependent and there have been two consecutive years of less than normal rainfall in 2014-15 and 2015-16.