Issues in Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Animal Husbandry

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies III:

• Issues in Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Animal Husbandry.

The last line of the paper is broad and issue-based: the problems of each sector and the policy answers to them.

Topics in detail

Agriculture

• Small and marginal holdings and the fragmentation of land
• Low productivity, stagnant incomes, rural indebtedness and farmer distress
• Credit: the Kisan Credit Card, institutional and informal credit
• Crop insurance and risk; climate change and climate-resilient agriculture
• Soil health, organic and natural farming (Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana)
• Farm mechanisation, research and extension: ICAR and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras
• Doubling farmers' incomes: diversification, allied activities, better prices
• Agricultural exports and the Agriculture Export Policy (2018)

Horticulture

• India's place as a large producer of fruits and vegetables
• Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture and the National Horticulture Board
• Post-harvest losses, cold chains and processing
• Protected cultivation (polyhouses), high-density planting, cluster development
• Floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants, spices

Forestry

• Forest and tree cover as reported in the biennial India State of Forest Report
• National Forest Policy (1988) and its goal of one-third of the area under forest or tree cover
• Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 and its 2023 amendment; the Forest Rights Act, 2006
• Joint Forest Management; social forestry and agroforestry (National Agroforestry Policy, 2014)
• Compensatory afforestation (CAMPA); the Green India Mission
• Minor forest produce and tribal livelihoods; forest fires

Animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries

• Livestock census; India's place as the largest producer of milk
• Operation Flood (from 1970) and the National Dairy Development Board
• Indigenous breeds: Gir, Sahiwal, Red Sindhi and Tharparkar cattle; Murrah and Bhadawari buffaloes
• Rashtriya Gokul Mission; the National Livestock Mission; the National Animal Disease Control Programme for foot-and-mouth disease and brucellosis
• Poultry, sheep and goat rearing; fodder shortage; stray cattle
• Fisheries and aquaculture: the Blue Revolution and the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (2020)
• Kisan Credit Card for animal husbandry and fisheries

Allied activities

• Sericulture: mulberry and non-mulberry silk; the Central Silk Board
• Apiculture and the honey mission
• Mushroom cultivation; integrated farming systems that combine crops, livestock and fish

Cross-cutting issues

• Water use in agriculture and the depletion of groundwater
• Climate change: heat stress on crops and animals, erratic rainfall
• Women in agriculture and their access to land, credit and extension
• Youth and agriculture: skills, start-ups in agri-technology
• Farmer producer organisations and co-operatives as a way to gain scale

Overlaps

• General Studies VI: agricultural diversity and problems of agriculture, agro and social forestry, the UP New Forest Policy, and aquaculture, sericulture, floriculture and horticulture in Uttar Pradesh.