Calling for corporatisation of agriculture and asking the industry to view the sector as a "business proposition", the Centre on Saturday said economic growth could not be attained merely from manufacturing and services.

"Agriculture needs to be looked at as a business proposition and not merely an activity of farmers. There is a need to promote corporatisation of agriculture by encouraging greater industry-agriculture linkages," finance secretary S Narayan said in New Delhi.

Addressing a select group of industrialists at the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said the next revolution would be in value addition in agriculture, especially in food processing.

"It (next revolution) will be possible through accent on value addition, which should percolate at the grass-root level," Narayan said.

Stressing that growth in India relied essentially on the development of agriculture sector, he said with the share of agriculture in GDP pegged at around 24 per cent, "the economic growth cannot be attained merely on the basis of manufacturing and services sectors."

Narayan said there was a need to push agriculture growth since it was important not only for contribution to GDP, but also because of its impact in pushing up the aggregate demand.

Seeking a radical shift in the treatment of agriculture, he said right from the pre-production stage to post-harvest handling and processing, the entire gamut of agri-business activities had to be treated as "an integrated whole and not separately."

Investment in irrigation and water-shed development in dry land areas should be given priority to reduce dependency of agriculture on rains, Narayan said.

PHDCCI president P K Jain said there was a general feeling that the implementation schedule and the roadmap for acheiving the "panch" priorities, enshrined in Union Budget for 2003-04, "leaves a lot to be desired".