This volume examines the transitions in Indian agriculture since the 1980s, and emphasizes upon the role of neoliberal policies and their impact. The essays presented here deal with a range of pertinent and contemporary issues, including global food security, livelihoods of agricultural labourers, and public and private investment. These weave together glimpses of the impasse faced by petty commodity producers (marginal and small farmers) and their subsequent economic distress and social exclusion. Comprehensive in analysis, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of agricultural economics, political economy, political science and public policy.
This open access book provides an evidence-based roadmap for revitalising Indian agriculture while ensuring that the growth process is efficient, inclusive, and sustainable, and results in sustained growth of farmers’ incomes. The book, instead of looking for global best practices and evaluating them to assess the possibility of replicating these domestically, looks inward at the best practices and experiences within Indian states, to answer questions such as -- how the agricultural growth process can be speeded up and made more inclusive, and financially viable; are there any best practices that can be studied and replicated to bring about faster growth in agriculture; does the prior hypothesis that rapid agricultural growth can alleviate poverty faster, reduce malnutrition, and augment farmers’ incomes stand? To answer these questions, the book follows four broad threads -- i) Linkage between agricultural performance, poverty and malnutrition; ii) Analysing the historical growth performance of agricultural sector in selected Indian states; iii) Will higher agricultural GDP necessarily result in higher incomes for farmers; iv) Analysing the current agricultural policy environment to evaluate its efficiency and efficacy, and consolidate all analysis to create a roadmap. These are discussed in 12 chapters, which provide a building block for the concluding chapter that presents a roadmap for revitalising Indian agriculture while ensuring growth in farmers’ incomes.
Despite efforts by the central and state governments, India remains home to the largest number of malnourished children and adults in the world. Authored by M. S. Swaminathan, a world scientist of rare distinction, this book holistically considers the problem of food production in India. Arguing for the use of environmentally sustainable agriculture--referred to as the "evergreen revolution"--this compilation addresses a number of ways to attain a hunger-free India, such as monsoon management, safeguarding biological diversity, and food security.
Biotechnology can bring major breakthroughs in agriculture. The book examines the experience of introduction of biotechnology in Indian agriculture, specifically, examining the performance of Bt cotton versus non-Bt cotton across India’s major cotton states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which together account for nearly 70 percent of the country’s cotton production. Major advances in biotechnology have made it possible to directly identify genes, determine their functions, and transfer them from one organism to another. The advances have spawned many technologies and Bt cotton is one important outcome. Bt cotton has become one of the most widely cultivated transgenic crops and is currently grown in 21 countries - 11 developing and 10 industrialized countries. The Government of India was relatively late in permitting biotechnology, only approving the cultivation of three transgenic Bt cotton hybrids from April 2002. Many concerns were raised about their performance there was strong opposition from some quarters. In India, Gujarat and Maharastra were the first states to adopt them, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. Based on a sample of 694 farming households, the book examines and analyzes the performance on the yields, pesticide costs, seed costs, overall production costs and profits. It also reports on the environmental impacts, satisfaction with the technology and ways of improving its performance.
This report assesses the performance of agricultural and food policy in India and calculates a set of policy indicators providing a comprehensive picture of agricultural support. These indicators, developed by the OECD, are already used regularly in the analysis of the agriculture and food ...
A single seed is more than just the promise of a plant. In rural south India, seeds represent diverging paths toward a sustainable livelihood. Development programs and global agribusiness promote genetically modified seeds and organic certification as a path toward more sustainable cotton production, but these solutions mask a complex web of economic, social, political, and ecological issues that may have consequences as dire as death. In Cultivating Knowledge anthropologist Andrew Flachs shows how rural farmers come to plant genetically modified or certified organic cotton, sometimes during moments of agrarian crisis. Interweaving ethnographic detail, discussions of ecological knowledge, and deep history, Flachs uncovers the unintended consequences of new technologies, which offer great benefits to some—but at others’ expense. Flachs shows that farmers do not make simple cost-benefit analyses when evaluating new technologies and options. Their evaluation of development is a complex and shifting calculation of social meaning, performance, economics, and personal aspiration. Only by understanding this complicated nexus can we begin to understand sustainable agriculture. By comparing the experiences of farmers engaged with these mutually exclusive visions for the future of agriculture, Cultivating Knowledge investigates the human responses to global agrarian change. It illuminates the local impact of global changes: the slow, persistent dangers of pesticides, inequalities in rural life, the aspirations of people who grow fibers sent around the world, the place of ecological knowledge in modern agriculture, and even the complex threat of suicide. It all begins with a seed.
Over the past two decades, significant investment has been made into agriculture-related natural resource management research in developing countries. This collection of case studies establishes a methodological foundation for impact assessments of NRMR through a discussion of research conducted by the CGIAR around the world.
Agriculture sector still dominates the Indian economic scene by providing livelihood to majority of the population. In most of the developing countries including India, agricultural growth is a precondition for economic development. Agriculture and allied activities contributed nearly 50 percent to India’s national income. Around 72 percent of total working population was engaged in agriculture. Inspite of an impressive rate of growth in the GCFA, its share in the GCF in the economy has been found to be declining. Although some improvement was observed in the share of GCFA in the GCF of economy in 2001-02, at 8.65 per cent, it again fell to 6.96 per cent in 2010-11. Capital formation is usually defined as an addition to the stock of productive equipment’s over time. The terms ‘capital formation’ and ‘investment’ are used interchangeably though have some distinction. But at the present stage of development of Indian agriculture, an assessment of capital formation in the agriculture sector may miss many important items of investment which are not accounted. This is because of the fact that, majority of Indian agriculturists being poor subsistence farmers for whom farming is not a business enterprise but a mode of living, Capital investments on the farm generally take place through small bits of acquisitions and activities which lead to an improvement in their productive capacity. Sustained investment on productive assets in agriculture is a pre-requisite for augmenting agricultural growth.
The book covers Indian agricultural development from the colonial to the present period. It examines how ruling class political ideology determined the agricultural policies from colonial rule. It considers both quantitative and qualitative aspects in all periods: colonial period to pre-green revolution phase, post-green revolution phase (early and late stages) and post-globalisation phase after 1991. India has achieved the ability to maintain food security, through enough food grain buffer stocks to meet the enormous public distribution system. But, with India’s entry into WTO in 1994, euphoria has been created among all types of farmers to adopt commercial crops like cotton cost-intensive inputs. Even food grain crops are grown through use of costly irrigation and chemicalised inputs. But they lacked remunerative prices, and so farmers began to commit suicides, which crossed 3.5 lakh. Government of India attributed this agrarian crisis to the technology fatigue and gave scope for second green revolution (GR-II). GR-I was achieved by public sector enterprise, whereas the GR-II as gene revolution is a result of private sector enterprise/MNCs. There is fear that opening up of the sector may lead to handover of the family farms to big agri-multinationals. GOI’s proposal to double farmers’ income by 2022 is feasible only when the problems, being faced by small, marginal and tenant farmers, are addressed in agricultural marketing, credit and extension services. Now, it is time to go for suitable forms of cooperative/collective agriculture, as 85 percent of total cultivators are the small and marginal farmers. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The medicinal plants have been used since ancient times for the treatment of human ailments. Over three quarters of the world population relies mainly on plants and plant extracts for health care. The herbal medicines today symbolize safety in contrast to the synthetics that are regarded as unsafe to human and environment. In the primeval times, the Indian sagacious held the view that herbal medicines are the only resolution to treat numeral health related problems and diseases. Although herbs had been priced for their medicinal, flavoring and aromatic qualities for centuries, the synthetic products of the modern age surpassed their importance, for a while. However, the blind dependence on synthetics is over and people are returning to the naturals with hope of safety and security. Understanding the worth and heritage of excellence of medicinal plants the book makes an attempt to provide information on cultivation of medicinal plants and their different uses. This book includes the chemical composition of plants, plant protection, essential oils extracted from plants, cultivation of more than 100 medicinal plants, list of rare medicinal plants and their various uses. The book covers different parameters of medicinal plants cultivation and various ways of their uses. It covers medicinal plants containing alkaloids, steroids flavonoids, glycosides, terpenoids, additives and other active metabolites. We hope that this book will be useful not only for technologists, professionals, but also for farmers, traders, exporters and importers of Medicinal Plants.
