The sluggish agricultural productivity behind Modi’s weakened popularity with rural voters

India's surprising election result, which saw Narendra Modi keep office but lose his legislative majority, has been linked to the prime minister's reduced popularity in key agricultural areas.

As we wrote in our lookback at Modi's decade in power, India has grown quickly, but unevenly -- with inflation remaining an issue, especially for rural workers whose income has grown more slowly than their urban counterparts. Modi, who abandoned contentious agricultural reforms three years ago amid protests, is still pledging to lift rural per capita income 50% by 2030.

Agriculture accounts for about 15% of Indian GDP and employs more than 100 million people. Amid the apparent voter discontent in this cohort, we examine the trend for Indian agricultural productivity over decades -- showing how it has climbed steadily, but trailed the pace seen in other emerging markets, such as Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Our first chart takes a long-term view of trends in Asian countries from Japan to Indonesia, tracking how agricultural productivity (as measured by kilograms of cereal produced per hectare) compares to manufacturing as a percentage of GDP. These two economic indicators are historically linked: agricultural surpluses foster investment in industrial capital. The scatter plots cover six decades for India, South Korea and Indonesia, about three decades for Japan, Bangladesh and Vietnam, and 23 years for Pakistan.

India, in purple, remains on the left side of the chart, with a flatter slope of progress over the decades compared to most of the other economies we tracked. (Japan has a similarly flat slope, but started from a much higher level of productivity.)

Our next two charts compare the same cohort of nations. The first measures cereal yields per hectare. While this has steadily improved for all nations, India and Pakistan remain far below the rest.

The second tracks the relationship between agricultural productivity and the University of Groningen's index of human capital (which is derived from education levels). Again, India trails the rest. Bangladesh, with a similar level of human capital development, has an agricultural productivity level that surpasses India's by 43%.

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