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Rural Livelihood
Orissa state is mainly dependent upon agro-based economy. At present, agriculture accounts for 28.23 percent of the Net State Domestic Product and provides direct and indirect employment to around 65 percent of the total workforce of the state.
In order to ensure sustainable livelihood opportunity for the rural poor mass, it is believed that agriculture sector needs to be strengthened through policy and financial support from the Government. In recent times, there is intense shift from farm to non/off-farm pulls the small and marginal farmers into an unsustainable, wage and low- income based livelihood structure. This is mostly due to the impression that agriculture is non remunerative, unreliable livelihood option of the poor.
The sluggish progress of the agricultural scenario in the State is due to factors like low productivity in the State. Low Soil Nutrition, lack of irrigation facilities, lack of irrigation facilities, erratic rainfall, widespread food insecurity and lack of alternative income generation options. The indicators like food grain production, fertiliser consumption, marketable surplus etc., hinder the process of achieving the targeted overall growth rate of 4 percent in agriculture.
The Orissa Human Development Report 2004 suggests that access to markets, credit, and extension services need to be facilitated for supporting improvements in agriculture. Various research studies suggest that there is a greater need for public investment in agriculture, irrigation, credit availability, better marketing of agricultural products, research and development along with adequate pricing and other incentives for private investment that would help revive agricultural growth.
