UPSC Civil Services 2020 Prelims General Studies Paper II

Passage-5 In India, agriculture still engages about half of its workforce, and about 85 per cent of its farms are small and marginal. Compared to China and Vietnam, which have experienced fast structural and rural transformation, India's story is of slow transformation. As a result, poverty reduction in India was at a much slower pace during $1988-2014$, compared to China and Vietnam. India's poverty reduction was slow during $1988-2005,$ but during $2005-2012,$ it accelerated dramatically-almost three times faster than during the earlier period. What did India do during this period? Research reveals that the relative price scenario changed significantly (by more than $50\%$ ) in favour of agriculture in the wake of rising global prices. This boosted private investments in agriculture by more than $50\%$. As a result, agri-GDP growth touched $4.1\%$ during $2007-2012$ as against $2.4\%$ during 2002 -2007. The net surplus or agritrade touched $\\$ 25$\text{ billion in 2013 -2014; real farm wages rose by }$7 \%$ per annum. All this led to unprecedented fall in poverty.