I refer to the "So they say” column (Parsiana, September 21-October 6, 2024) in which Naushad Forbes’s excerpt from Business Standard seems to lament that "agriculture employs 46% but produces 18% of our gross domestic product.”
Before we conclude therefrom that agriculture is a poor contributor to the economy, we must be conscious of the crucial role that farmers play in the well-being, stability and independence of our country by providing us the first item that sustains our very lives. Moreover, in supporting and promoting agriculture we are also to a large extent preventing the cancer of concrete from claiming the corpse of our environment.
While industry may provide rosy GDP (gross domestic product) figures, and industrialists may covet agricultural land, government should be prudent in leveraging the farmers’ efforts rather than in reducing their significance in our economy. PHIROZE B. JAVERI
phiroze.javeri@gmail.com
The editors reply:
Forbes’s comment was probably to show there was an excess of personnel in the agricultural sector and the same output could be achieved by fewer people. The surplus labor could then be absorbed elsewhere. There is no intention to reduce the agricultural landholdings or to downplay the importance of agriculture in our economy.