Jammu and Kashmir, though an agrarian society, is face to face with a grave threat on the front as agricultural land is shrinking on an alarming rate. Official date reveals that fallow land (land left uncultivated) has increased from 120,000 hectares in 2020-21 to 135,000 hectares in 2023-24. The barren and uncultivable land has risen from 295,000 hectares to 302,000 hectares and the fertile agricultural land is increasingly being converted into residential areas, commercial projects, and roads. The land put to non-agricultural use rose from 214,000 hectares in 2020-21 to 215,000 hectares in 2023-24.
Jammu and Kashmir has been lavishly bestowed with a wealth of resources by nature, which if exploited judiciously and scientifically could unburden people from seemingly unavoidable dependence on neighbouring states for essential commodities like food-grains. The soil of the UT is very fertile and the yield per hectare could be astounding if only the farmers develop scientific outlook and then take to latest farming techniques. But unfortunately this is not the whole picture of the state of agriculture here. Fact of the matter remains that Jammu and Kashmir desperately lags behind in agriculture and allied sectors so much so that it is not able to fulfil its own needs of food. Doubtlessly the economic condition of the UT is very precarious and agriculture is the sector that could bail it out. But this is possible only if people, and the educated young lot in particular, also start thinking of agriculture and related sectors as a sphere of activity to opt for a career in.
Governments, that be, also share a lot of blame, for they never accorded agriculture kind of priority it deserved and nothing much has been done to popularize it and develop it on scientific lines. One of the major problems confronting us is the transformation of our agrarian agricultural lands into concrete jungles. This was, and is bound to happen because when youth shy away from farming, the agricultural land of the family gets automatically relegated into a material piece of property. This land is then sold off, even if for a fortune, but it very rarely gets recycled into a state wherein it would again contribute to production of food. Of course it wouldn’t have been so had the farming and allied activities been marketed here properly.
As mentioned above, peculiar geographic location and climatic conditions of J&K make it ideal for the growth of foods of highest quality. Take, for instance, the ‘Kashmiri rice’ grown here or for that matter the Basmati rice grown in certain Jammu regions. The stuff that grows here is priceless. The varieties of rice that arrive here from other states at highly exorbitant prices, are no match to our indigenous varieties. But the rice from elsewhere is nevertheless bought and consumed here, because our local produce is too little to feed us. It is the insensitive attitude and non-seriousness of cultivators as well as the lack of concern on part of the government including the couple of agricultural universities in Kashmir and Jammu which are responsible for this agrarian mess the state is in.
