ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the explanations for agricultural performance that are internal to agriculture. Agriculture in colonial India produced more than half of the GDP and employed more than half the labour force the latter is true to the present day. Commercialization of agriculture usually means a process whereby peasants produce primarily for sale in distant markets. Agricultural productivity, which was low to begin with, remained low for most of the colonial period despite an increase in market growth. The primary sector consists of agriculture, forestry, and fishing; secondary sector of manufacturing, mining, electricity, gas, and construction; and the tertiary sector of trade, hotels and transportation, financial and business services, administration, and defence. Of the total expenditure on railways and irrigation works that was expected to cover their borrowing costs, more than 85 per cent was devoted to railways between 1894 and 1919. Famines would have been less likely had agriculture in colonial India been more productive.
