AGRICULTURE

At about 58%, more than half of India’s population is engaged in agriculture. The contribution to the world food trade made by India has been consecutively increasing year on year. As India is one of the largest countries in terms of size, it enjoys the benefit of several agro-climatic zones enabling the country to grow a variety of agricultural commodities. The Indian food & grocery market is the 6th largest in the world. India is also the 2nd largest fruit producer in the world. Due to cost-effective labour availability in India and adoption of innovative technology by large corporations as well as small farmers in labour-intensive fields, the country has been able to increase the yield of agricultural products while reducing overall costs, making the country a preferred export hub. This transformation has enabled India to become one of the fastest growing markets for agricultural equipment.
The government has been providing several incentives in the farming sector to ensure adoption of new technology to increase crop yield and make India a self-sufficient country in terms of domestic food availability.
Indian agricultural machinery sector attracted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow of USD 466 million between April 2000 and December 2017. Meanwhile, the agricultural services sector attracted FDI inflow of USD 2 billion during the same period.