The day also commemorates the birth of the fifth Prime Minister of India, Chaudhary Charan Singh, who started as a farmer before earning his seat in the government.
India is an agriculture-based country, and Charan Singh played a key role in helping this part of society by passing different bills to improve the conditions for farmers.
Charan Singh was a leading figure in finalizing the Debt Redemption Bill 1939 which brought great relief to rural debtors and brought about the Land Holding Act 1960, which was aimed at lowering the ceiling on land holdings for farmers in Uttar Pradesh.
He also modified the central government plan to assist farmers by offering them a much higher procurement price than the prevailing market rates.
About 70% of India’s rural households depend on agriculture. The country is the world's largest producer of milk, pulses and jute, and the second largest producer of rice, wheat, sugarcane, groundnut, vegetables, fruit and cotton. It is also one of the main suppliers of spices, fish, poultry, livestock and plantation crops.
Most of the wheat is grown in the Indian states of Haryana and Punjab. Another major agricultural product is tea, which is grown in the eastern parts of Assam, in Darjeeling and in the south in the vicinity of the Nilgiri and Annamalay mountain ranges.
An unusual way to grow fruit is used by Kashmiris on Dal Lake. They run floating farms with artificially composed soil fertilized with guano.
The Basmati rice which India is famous for is grown in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana, and accounts for about 60% of all India’s rice crop.