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Agriculture in India has a significant history. Today, India ranks second worldwide in farm output. 

Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry and fisheries accounted for 16.6 % of the GDP in 2009, about 

50 % of the total workforce. The economic contribution of agriculture to India's GDP is steadily declining 

with the country's broad-based economic growth. Still, agriculture is demographically the broadest economic 

sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic fabric of India.

Per 2010 FAO world agriculture statistics, India is the world's largest producer of many fresh fruits and 

vegetables, milk, major spices, select fresh meats, select fibrous crops such as jute, several staples such 

as millets and castor oil seed. India is the second largest producer of wheat and rice, the world's major 

food staples. India is also the world's second or third largest producer of several dry fruits, 

agriculture-based textile raw materials, roots and tuber crops, pulses, farmed fish, eggs, coconut, 

sugarcane and numerous vegetables. India ranked within the world's five largest producers of over 80 % of 

agricultural produce items, including many cash crops such as coffee and cotton, in 2010. India is also one 

of the world's five largest producers of livestock and poultry meat, with one of the fastest growth rates, 

as of 2011.

One report from 2008 claimed India's population is growing faster than its ability to produce rice and 

wheat.Other recent studies claim India can easily feed its growing population, plus produce wheat and rice 

for global exports, if it can reduce food staple spoilage, improve its infrastructure and raise its farm 

productivity to those achieved by other developing countries such as Brazil and China.

In fiscal year ending June 2011, with a normal monsoon season, Indian agriculture accomplished an all-time 

record production of 85.9 million tonnes of wheat, a 6.4 % increase from a year earlier. Rice output in 

India also hit a new record at 95.3 million tonnes, a 7 % increase from the year earlier. Lentils and many 

other food staples production also increased year over year. Indian farmers, thus produced about 71 

kilograms of wheat and 80 kilograms of rice for every member of Indian population in 2011. The per capita 

supply of rice every year in India is now higher than the per capita consumption of rice every year in 

Japan.

India exported around 2 million metric tonnes of wheat and 2.1 million metric tonnes of rice in 2011 to 

Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh and other regions around the world.

Aquaculture and catch fishery is amongst the fastest growing industries in India. Between 1990 and 2010, 

Indian fish capture harvest doubled, while aquaculture harvest tripled. In 2008, India was the world's 

sixth largest producer of marine and freshwater capture fisheries, and the second largest aquaculture 

farmed fish producer. India exported 600,000 metric tonnes of fish products to nearly half of all the 

world's countries.

India has shown a steady average nationwide annual increase in the kilograms produced per hectare for 

various agricultural items, over the last 60 years. These gains have come mainly from India's green 

revolution, improving road and power generation infrastructure, knowledge of gains and reforms.Despite 

these recent accomplishments, agriculture in India has the potential for major productivity and total 

output gains, because crop yields in India are still just 30 % to 60 % of the best sustainable crop yields 

achievable in the farms of developed as well as other developing countries. Additionally, losses after 

harvest due to poor infrastructure and unorganised retail cause India to experience some of the highest 

food losses in the world.

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