Steno General Dictation No. 389

Now, these two reports together given us a long-term perspective of the agricultural situation in the country. According to the report of the National Commission, we can expect to have a comfortable food situation earliest in 1985, and possibly in 2000 A.D. They have drawn up an optimistic and what they call, a realistic estimate of the production of foodgrains and they have come to the conclusion that only by 2000 A.D. we can hope to meet our entire requirements and have even a small surplus for export. Even this optimism is based on the continuance of certain trends in agricultural production whose continuance is by no means certain because the Census of Land Holdings clearly brings out that out of 70 million holdings, as many as 35 million are below one hectare.