Agriculture, forestry and fishing contribution to India’s GDP has gone up sharply to almost 18 per cent in the first quarter of 2020-21 from about 13 per cent during April-June quarter of the previous fiscal.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing the bright spot of the Indian economy in the midst of COVID-19 has emerged as the second largest contributor to the country’s GDP, well above ’Manufacturing’ and other key sectors which suffered severe setbacks from the pandemic, an ASSOCHAM analysis has brought out.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing’ (AFF)’s contribution to India’s GDP, refined as Gross Value Add in the segregated set of data, has gone up sharply to almost 18 per cent in the first quarter of 2020-21 from about 13 per cent during April-June quarter of the previous fiscal. Manufacturing remained around 13 per cent in its contribution to the GVA. While other sectors are catching up fast in the subsequent quarters, the AFF remains the second largest contributor to GDP/GVA, as of now (latest data available).
AFF was at the fourth position in terms of its contribution to GVA in Q1 period of 2019-20 at Rs 4.39 lakh crore, behind manufacturing at Rs 5.78 lakh crore.
Since all other sectors came under a severe impact of the COVID-19, the ’Agriculture, forestry and fishing’ (AFF) was the only sector which could show a positive annualised growth of 3.4 per cent, contributing as much as Rs 4.54 lakh crore during first quarter of the current financial year as per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MOSPI) data.
’’All credit to our farmers for ensuring food security during one of the most difficult times in the modern history of mankind. They deserved Prime Minister, Narendra Modi’s applaud who did it in an eloquent manner, when he stated that: when the world is battling coronavirus, Indian farmers have broken last year’s production record,” Deepak Sood, Secretary General ASSOCHAM said.
Against such a challenging global situation, India’s farm sector has achieved a remarkable performance, giving a huge value-add opportunity to the processors and agri exports. For September, 2020, rice exports have jumped up year-on-year by a whopping 94 per cent to $725 million; cereals by 337 per cent to $56 million; oilseeds by 36 per cent to $69 million.
