Agriculture in the Twenty-First Century

Research record

Agriculture remains the largest spatial system of the contemporary economy of Mithila, Vajji and Anga even where its share of measured income has fallen. Fields, orchards, ponds, wetlands, livestock, irrigation channels, farm roads, wholesale markets and seasonal labour networks organize rural life and connect villages to towns. The twenty-first-century agricultural question is therefore not whether the region is becoming ‘less agricultural’ in a simple sense, but how farming is being recomposed under small holdings, migration, mechanisation, rising input costs, changing diets, expanding roads and markets, and recurrent climate shocks. A household may cultivate rice and wheat, lease additional land, sell milk, send a member to Delhi or the Gulf, hire a combine, and market vegetables through a trader. Such a household is simultaneously agricultural, migrant, service-using and market-dependent. The regional frame requires the same caution established in Chapter 117. Mithila, Vajji and Anga are historical-cultural regions rather than current statistical units. Agriculture must be reconstructed from district, block, crop, irrigation, livestock and market evidence rather than from a fabricated single regional total. Bihar’s official agricultural statistics provide the main Indian baseline; Nepal’s agricultural statistics are needed for the Madhesh side of the transborder economy. The Fourth Agriculture Roadmap of Bihar, launched for 2023–28, places sustainability, soil health, water conservation, climate resilience, organic inputs, horticulture and allied activities within a single policy framework. This chapter uses that framework critically: policy targets show intended direction, while farm structure and risk determine what is feasible on the ground.

Section index

1. 118.1 Agriculture as the spatial base of the contemporary economy
2. 118.2 A regional farm economy without a single statistical boundary
3. 118.3 Small holdings, fragmentation and the scale problem
4. 118.4 Ownership, tenancy and the operational holding
5. 118.5 Rice and wheat: persistence of the cereal core
6. 118.6 Maize and the reorganisation of seasonal farming
7. 118.7 Pulses, oilseeds and millets in diversification strategies
8. 118.8 Sugarcane, jute and other commercial crops
9. 118.9 Makhana, ponds and the wetland economy of Mithila
10. 118.10 Horticulture: litchi, mango, banana and vegetables
11. 118.11 Livestock, dairy, poultry and fisheries as farm income
12. 118.12 Irrigation: canals, tubewells and uneven water control
13. 118.13 Flood agriculture, waterlogging and the economy of excess water
14. 118.14 Drought, heat and the other side of water insecurity
15. 118.15 Soil health, fertilizers and nutrient imbalance
16. 118.16 Seed systems, crop varieties and technological choice
17. 118.17 Mechanisation on small farms
18. 118.18 Migration, labour scarcity and the changing farm household
19. 118.19 Women’s agricultural work and measurement gaps
20. 118.20 Credit, debt and the timing of farm expenditure
21. 118.21 Procurement, minimum support prices and local market reality
22. 118.22 Traders, mandis and price formation
23. 118.23 Storage, cold chains and post-harvest loss
24. 118.24 Farmer Producer Organisations and collective scale
25. 118.25 Organic farming, certification and the Ganga organic corridor
26. 118.26 Climate-resilient agriculture and the Fourth Agriculture Roadmap
27. 118.27 Digital agriculture, advisories and the datafied farm
28. 118.28 Madhesh agriculture and the cross-border production zone
29. 118.29 From yield growth to farm-income resilience
30. 118.30 Agriculture as a multi-sector rural economy

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “Agriculture in the Twenty-First Century.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/history/social-118/