READ THIS IF YOU WANT FOOD ON YOUR PLATE TOMORROW
MORNING!!!
AGRICULTURAL SECTOR ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE
On the eve of independence India inherited a weak economy from the
Britishers, which was predominantly agricultural. Most of the population
lived in villages and was engaged in farming, animal husbandry and other
agriculture related jobs. The agricultural (primary) sector was the sole force
driving the GDP.
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However, the farmers were not involved in
commercial farming but subsistence farming, that is, only producing
enough to meet their own needs and no surplus for the market.
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There was unequal
distribution of land and severe fragmentation.
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Those who owned lands were fortunate and others who
were landless worked on someone else’s land and were always at the mercy of
their landlords.
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The agricultural sector faced another problem, that of
Disguised unemployment, 10 people were employed on a land that required
the input of only 5.
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Also farming and agriculture were not mechanized.
There were no tractors, threshers, sprinklers etc. and so everything, right
from sowing, tilling, ploughing, watering to harvesting, was done manually.
And worst of all, even after putting in so much hard work, you weren’t
sure if you would get a good harvest because it all depended on a good monsoon
season as the farmers had not permanent means of irrigation.
A RAY OF HOPE- THE GREEN REVOLITION
Then came the Green Revolution in the 1960s, Started by M.S.
Swaminathan, as a boon to farmers. Introducing HYV (High Yielding Varieties)
seeds that increased farm produce manifolds. It increased the use of
fertilizers and pesticides and water for irrigation, as HYV seeds produced huge
amount of heat and required ample water. Thus, emerged another challenge for
our farmers, MORE AND MORE WATER requirement.
ARE OUR FARMERS HAPPY?
Today agriculture has been mechanized, our farmers have various machines
to ease their process of cultivation. But does this solve all the problems?
Well, if it did, we wouldn’t have been hearing about farmer suicides
each day in the news. There wouldn’t have been news of a farmer’s family dying
of hunger due to bad harvest or the farmers crop failing due to inadequate
rainfall.
As per the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) approx. 10,349
people working on farms, consisting of 5,763 farmers and 4,586 agricultural
laborer's, committed suicide in 2018. And out of 5,763 farmers, 5,457 were
males.
In 2016 NCRB reported 11,379 farmer suicides,
this translates to 948 suicides per month or 31 suicides every day.
Maharashtra accounts for the highest number of
farmer suicides followed by Karnataka.
If this data doesn’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will. Isn’t
it horrific that the people who provide for our food are in such a dismal condition?
You have rice and chapatti on your plate today because someone planted and
harvested wheat and rice, in scorching heat, with bleeding hands and swollen
feet, for you 6 months or maybe a year ago.
Providing our farmers adequate water and irrigation facilities is the
bare minimum that we can do for them. Leaving them at the mercy of rainfall is
not the right thing to do. And if in spite of innumerable promises electricity
hasn’t reached their areas yet due to our inefficiencies, we can at least
provide them generators so that they can carry out their operations with ease.
Prakash Group of Industries is one such
manufacturing firm, striving to improve the lives of our farmers. Their
vision is to enhance the quality of farmers life by providing them cost
effective power tools.
Also, they focus on developing eco-friendly
gensets that create less pollution while being manufactured and when in
use. Their gensets do not create noise like the conventional ones and hence are
effective in fighting noise pollution.
Their mission is to transform the agricultural sector with
advance technology. The agricultural sector is the base of every economy and if
it grows, the secondary sectors grows as well.
Irrigation is inevitable need of the farmers. Even if there are enough
water bodies, it is not possible to collect water from them in various
containers daily to irrigate your field. Prakash group manufactures Pump
sets so that farmers can extract enough water for their fields. Sometimes
the pipelines are laid by the government but they are useless if water cannot
be transported to the fields. Prakash group has made effort to solve this
problem of farmers by manufacturing pump sets.
Diesel pump set
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Split casting pumps
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High head pumps
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Volute casing pumps
F For more details reach out to the website Prakash
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