India’s Agricultural Marketing


Book Description

​The proposed book provides an assessment of an important yet controversial policy initiated by the Indian government and governments of several other developing countries. Marketing reforms, it is claimed, can be a crucial answer to solving the problem of rural poverty in agrarian economies where large sections of populace are engaged in low paying agriculture. On a wider front, these reforms could help in providing growth impetus to an economy and even the global economy at large. Yet, the subject of liberalizing agricultural markets is also part of a broad and perhaps a bitter political debate between national and sub-national policy makers and academic discourses in India and other countries. A clearer understanding and a possible resolution of the issues involved will be decidedly useful. The experience of India, one of the largest and most agriculture-dominated economies, will undoubtedly provide valuable lessons not only for steering the domestic economic policy but also for other countries to set their own policy agenda. The book attempts to capture the evolving reality in a large and diverse country and presents an objective evaluation to enable aspiring investors and those in policy making, food business and civil society to make more informed assessment and decision.




The Quiet Revolution in Staple Food Value Chains


Book Description

Major changes have been occurring almost unnoticed in staple value chains in Asia. The Quiet Revolution in Staple Food Value Chains documents and explains the transformation of value chains moving rice and potatoes between the farm gate and the consumer in Bangladesh, the People’s Republic of China, and India. The changes noted are the rapid rise of supermarkets, modern cold storage facilities, large rice mills, and commercialized small farmers using input-intensive, mechanized technologies. These changes affect food security in ways that are highly relevant for policymakers across Asia—the rise of supermarkets provides cheaper staples, more direct relations in the chains combined with branding have increased traceability, and the rise of cold storage has brought higher incomes for potato farmers and all-season access for potato consumers. The book also joins two debates that have long been separate and parallel—food industry and agribusiness development and market competitiveness—with the food security and poverty alleviation agend




Agricultural Market Integration in India


Book Description

We assess the degree of cross-market price discrepancy (a proxy for market integration), its evolution over time, and proximate determinants, using monthly price data for 21 agricultural goods and 60 markets in India. Econometric analysis shows that cross-market price integration is positively associated with the level of transportation infrastructure, and distance between market pairs. There is no robust evidence that price integration has increased in recent years, suggesting that any positive effects of recent policy initiatives are either small, outweighed by the identified determinants of integration, or yet to come.







Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cotton seed production in North-Eastern Karnataka: An economic analysis


Book Description

Karnataka is one of the nine major Bt cotton growing states in the country. The Bt cotton seed production focussed on the socio-economic characteristics of contract farmers, cost and return, efficiency of resource use and problems faced by the farmers in Bt cotton seed production under different companies. Five companies having highest area under Bt cotton seed production were selected for study. The present study was conducted with primary data collected entirely based on a multistage random sampling technique from 200 Bt cotton seed production growers who have contracted with the different seed companies. The study pertained to the agricultural year 2012-13. The total cost of Bt cotton seed production varied from one company contract farmers to other company contract farmers. The total cost was found to be higher (Rs.96829) in case of JK seeds company contract farmers followed by the farmers who have contracted with Monsanto seeds company (Rs.95797). While, the net returns obtained from Bt cotton seed production was found to be higher in case of Monsanto seeds company contract farmers (Rs.46387) followed by Kaveri seeds company contract farmers (Rs.33076). The Cobb-Douglas production function revealed that the farmers who have contracted with different seed companies, the use of seed was found to be optimum across all company contract farmers. Whereas, fertilizer resource was over utilized by farmers who have contracted with various companies. Non availability of trained labour and prevalence of high wage rate were the major constraints in case of production, where as poor technical assistance and low contract price were the contractual problems. The other problems regarding plant protection, high incidence of diseases was the major constraint in Bt cotton seed production and in case of marketing, high price of parents of Bt cotton seeds and low price of the seeds offered by the agencies were the major ones. Therefore the Bt cotton seed production technology had positive impact on Socio- economic status of farmers by increase in yield and reducing cost on inputs thereby increase in income and also standard of living.




Annual Report


Book Description













Agricultural Value Chains in India


Book Description

This open access book provides a clear holistic conceptual framework of CISS-F (competitiveness, inclusiveness, sustainability, scalability and access to finance) to analyse the efficiency of value chains of high value agricultural commodities in India. It is based on the understanding that agriculture is an integrated system that connects farming with logistics, processing and marketing. Farmer’s welfare being central to any agricultural policy makes it very pertinent to study how a value chain works and can be strengthened further to realize this policy goal. This book adds value to the existing research by studying the value chains end-to-end across a wide spectrum of agricultural commodities with the holistic lens of CISS-F. It is not enough that a value chain is competitive but not inclusive or it is competitive and inclusive but not sustainable. The issue of scalability is very critical to achieve macro gains in terms of greater farmer outreach and sectoral growth. The research undertaken here brings out some very useful insights for policymaking in terms of what needs to be done better to steer the agricultural value chains towards being more competitive, inclusive, sustainable and scalable. The value chain specific research findings help draw very nuanced policy recommendations as well as present a big picture of the future direction of policy making in agriculture.