Macro Management of Agricultural Schemes in Karnataka : An Assessment of Impact

Agriculture sector in India has been beset with conspicuous problems like declining area of cultivation, productivity and increasing cost of cultivation. These problems have caused a serious threat to household income of farming community. Macro Management of Agricultural Schemes (MMASs) is one of the corrective interventions, implemented successfully throughout the country in the last decade, including the State of Karnataka. The experience of the State clearly indicates a multi-pronged positive impact on the agriculture sector and benefited all sizes of the farmers. There have been increases in the area, yield and productivity under the scheme apart from a significant decline in the cost of cultivation due to adoption of new techniques, which contributed to the increasing household income of the farmers. However, farmers have been bogged down by a number of new problems associated with the scheme and correspondingly, the paper offers a number of policy alternatives to the scheme for effective implementation.