Jagdish Chander Raina
rainajagdishchander@gmail.com
What a nation defines as “essential” reveals the priorities it chooses to protect. In India’s policy framework, essential services include healthcare, electricity, water supply, transport, and law enforcement-sectors rightly safeguarded for their critical role in maintaining stability. Yet, the agriculture sector that sustains them all, and ultimately sustains life itself, continues to remain outside this formal recognition. This exclusion is not a minor gap; it is a structural inconsistency. In India, where a majority of the population depends on farming for livelihood and where food systems underpin public health and economic resilience, the failure to accord agriculture essential service status reflects a disconnect between policy classification and ground realities.
Agriculture is not merely an economic activity; it is the foundation of human health, national food security, and ecological sustainability. The COVID-19 pandemic offered a stark reminder of this reality. While industries shut down and urban centers came to a halt, agriculture continued to function, ensuring that food reached millions of households. Farmers, often without recognition or adequate protection, emerged as the true frontline workers of the crisis. This resilience raises an important question: if agriculture is indispensable during emergencies, why is it not formally recognized as an essential service?
One of the strongest arguments for granting agriculture essential service status lies in its direct impact on public health. Food is the most basic human need, and its quality determines the health outcomes of a population. India continues to grapple with the dual burden of malnutrition-undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies on one hand, and lifestyle-related diseases on the other. This phenomenon, often referred to as “hidden hunger,” cannot be addressed through healthcare interventions alone. It requires a robust, nutrition-sensitive agricultural system promoting production of diverse, safe, and nutrient-rich foods.
Declaring agriculture as an essential service would help align farm practices with national health goals. This will also encourage policy support for bio-fortified crops, organic and natural farming, and diversified production systems that go beyond staple grains. This shift is crucial if India is to move from food security to nutrition security-a transition that is long overdue.
Equally important is the role of agriculture in ensuring economic stability and improving living standards, particularly in rural areas. Agriculture employs nearly 45-50% of India’s workforce, yet its contribution to GDP remains disproportionately low. This imbalance reflects not a lack of importance, but a lack of policy prioritization and structural support. Recognizing agriculture as an essential service would elevate its status in national planning, ensuring better access to credit, infrastructure, insurance, and market linkages for farmers. During the pandemic, disruptions in supply chains, labour shortages, and logistical bottlenecks exposed the vulnerability of the sector. Farmers faced difficulties to get inputs like seeds and fertilizers and the perishable produce often went to waste due to transport restrictions. If agriculture were classified as an essential service, these disruptions could be minimized through pre-defined protocols, ensuring continuity from farm to market.
Sustainability is another critical dimension that strengthens the case for agriculture’s inclusion in the essential services framework. Climate change poses an existential threat to food systems, with erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and extreme weather events affecting crop productivity. At the same time, conventional farming practices have led to soil degradation, water depletion, and loss of biodiversity. By recognizing agriculture as essential, the government can prioritize investments in climate-resilient farming systems, promote resource-efficient practices, and support farmers in adopting eco-friendly technologies beneficial for society as a whole.
Such a paradigm policy shift attract youth to agriculture, increasingly being abandoned due to threat perception of low profitability and prestige. With the right support systems in place, agriculture can become a viable and rewarding profession, driven by innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology. Today’s youth are not averse to hard work but they are averse to uncertainty. If agriculture is backed by assured policy protection, better market integration, digital platforms, and value-addition opportunities, it can emerge as a dynamic sector for Agri-Startups, FPOs/FPCs, precision farming, agri-tech solutions, and export-oriented enterprises. Recognizing it as an essential service would send a strong signal that farming is not a fall back option, but a future-ready profession. It will encourage institutional investments in skill development, incubation, and rural enterprise creation, making agriculture aspirational for the coming generations.
Beyond existing policy support, formally recognizing agriculture as an essential service would bring deeper structural clarity and long-term resilience to the sector. This will enable agricultural operations to remain uninterrupted during crisis, receive precedence in policy decisions, and its seamless integration in national emergency response systems. It will affirm agriculture sector as non-negotiable in times of disruption, on par with critical sectors like healthcare and energy. Thereby reinforcing accountability, continuity, and the nation’s collective commitment to food and livelihood security.
Globally, there is growing recognition of the need to strengthen food systems as a cornerstone of sustainable development. International frameworks such as the UN-led Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize the interlinkages between agriculture, health, poverty reduction, and environmental sustainability. India, as a signatory to these commitments, must align its domestic policies accordingly for ensuring that agriculture not to be treated in isolation but as an integrated driver of national development.
The time has come to rethink our approach to essential services. The traditional boundaries separating sectors like agriculture and healthcare are increasingly blurred in a world facing complex, interconnected challenges. Food is not just a commodity; it is a determinant of health, a driver of economic growth, and a pillar of social stability.
Elevating agriculture to essential service status is not merely a policy step-it is a strategic commitment to the nation’s future. It acknowledges the sector’s central role in sustaining life and livelihoods, and it lays the foundation for a more resilient, equitable, and sustainable future.
As India aspires to emerge as a global leader in the 21st century, it must anchor its progress in the strength of its most fundamental sector. True national resilience and prosperity cannot be built on fragile foundations. They must rest on a system that sustains life itself is our agriculture. The timeless wisdom of “Sarva Krishi Mulasch Jeevanam”- agriculture is the very foundation of life-resonates more powerfully today than ever before. Recognizing and elevating agriculture to its rightful status is not just an economic or policy requirement; it is a civilizational commitment to nourish, sustain, and secure the future of the nation.
(The author is Ex-Joint Director Agriculture.)
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