In India agri cultural land has shrunk by nearly two per cent in the last two decades, a fact which does not augur well for the predominate agrarian country.
Total agricultural land in India in 2008-09 was 182.385 million hectare against 185.142 million hectare in 1988-89, a fall by 2.76 million hectare, according to the data provided by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in Parliament recently.
As per the 2001 census, the percentage of population employed in agriculture was 58.2 per cent of total workers population of 402.2 million in the country, Minister of State for Agriculture Arun Yadav had informed Parliament last week.
On steps taken to arrest the decline in the agricultural land, the minister said that as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, land falls under the purview of the state governments and, therefore, it is for the state governments to bring in suitable policy to prevent the diversion of agricultural land for non-agriculture purposes.
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