Agriculture provides livelihood to 54.6% of India’s population (2011 Census) and generates 20% of the total Gross Value Added (2020-21). It makes up 14.3% of our total exports and 5.3% of our total imports.
Culturally, historically, and economically, agriculture is important for India.
India has launched a website to share all data related to agriculture in India.
The home page has advance production estimates. These estimates have been reasonably accurate in the past.
How to use the portal
On the left, just above the map of India, we see a small dropdown. From here, choose the crop for which you want to see the production estimates.
Drought portal of India
On the top menu, go to Miscellaneous. There is a link to the Drought Intelligence Portal of India.
The direct link to the drought monitoring portal is
https://vedas.sac.gov.in/agridss/index.html
On this portal, we can use the dropdown on top to see where the rainfall has been deficient, and other information.
This year, 224 districts had deficient rainfall overall (though the monsoon season is still on) and 90 had excess rainfall – Some of these districts are in Rajasthan, where even now, we are experiencing rainfall.
In this graph, we can see that even today, less than 25% of India’s fields have access to irrigation facilities. This means that they are dependent on rains for irrigation.