Speaking at the session on  Actions for Modernizing India s Agriculture Sector  in the India Economic Summit held on 15th November 2010  organized jointly by the World Economic Forum  WEF  and Confederation of Indian Industry  CII   Bhupinder Singh Hooda  Chief Minister of Haryana said that the growth in food grain production of the country has either declined or stagnated  This is a matter of great concern given that India s population is growing exponentially  The declining farm output can be attributed to the falling productivity due to fragmented land holding  degradation of soil  imbalanced use of fertilizers  inadequate availability of quality seeds  poor mechanization  depletion of water resources  knowledge gap and poor dissemination of technology  The Chief Minister of Haryana said that there is a wide gap between the realized and realizable yield of various crops in the Indian farm sector 
Another major concern is that the flow of resources to the agricultural sector is declining and indebtedness of small and marginal families is rising  There appears to be a technology fatigue and the link between the laboratory and the field is weak  In order to meet the technological gap it is important that there is greater public private partnership  Since the mid 1990s private investment in agriculture has stagnated while public investment has continued to decline  The agriculture sector which contributes 17 per cent of India s GDP and supports 60 per cent of India s population has been showing a growth of just 2 per cent in the past few years while the economy as a whole has been growing at around 8 per cent  One of the major targets of the Indian agriculture sector is to double its food production by 2040 in order to feed the growing population 
The debate also focused on the subsidy issue in the agriculture sector  According to Ashok Gulati  Director  Asia  International Food Policy and Research Institute  IFPRI   resource allocation in India is lopsided  20 per cent of resources should be in the form of subsidy while 80 per cent should be investment  However  the reverse is true in case of India  There is a greater need to use resources to invest in rural infrastructure such as roads which is 8 to 10 times more productive than to give subsidy in the form of free power  Also  subsidies should be in the form of direct income to farmers
Another issue that the debate focused on was that of rising food prices  According to Robert N  Subbaraman  Chief Economist Nomura International  Hong Kong   the rise in food prices could be a structural issue  The contractionary monetary policy stance taken by the RBI in the current fiscal year is likely to be effective only in the short run  To ensure that inflation does not become structural in the long run the Government needs to address the supply side bottlenecks  Chengal Reddy  Co Chairman  Indian Farmers and Industry Alliance  said that the Government needs to realize that it has its limitations and that the potential of Indian agriculture can only be realized if there is greater partnership between industry and the farm sector  The CEO of Wal Mart India and the Executive Vice President of Monsanto Company  USA  were of the view that Indian agriculture sector has great potential  According to a recent McKinsey report  the farm sector in India has USD 60 billion worth opportunity and the corporate sector is keen to extend its helping hand  However  restrictive legislation inhibits this partnership