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This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.
This book explores structural changes in India's agrifood systems during the next ten to twenty years. The dynamics in the agrifood sector is explored in the context of the overall economy, taking into account agricultural and trade policies and their impacts on national and global markets. The contributors draw on qualitative and quantitative approaches, using both a national model - to focus on urban-rural relations and income distribution - and an international model to focus on patterns of economic growth and international trade.
Contributed articles presented at a seminar organized by Institute of Economic Growth.
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.
India’s recent performance in agriculture has been favorable, with agricultural production growing over the past 30 years. Yet there is widespread consensus that, relative to the rest of the economy, agriculture is lagging and that it can and must do much better to support india’s overall high economic growth and dynamism. This book explores the future and presents the audacious question: what could the agricultural sector in India look like 30 years from now and how should it look if it is to successfully meet the needs of the country’s affluent society? In order to address this question, this book proposes a set of recommendations that should be implemented on a priority basis. These recommendations are as follows: (i) make public programs much more focused and effective; (ii) recognize water as a critical, long-term constraint to India’s agricultural growth and give top priority to significantly improving the efficiency of water use; (iii) promote new high-yield seeds and related technologies, including mechanization, to improve yields and productivity; (iv) improve the effectiveness of agricultural research and extension; (v) support further improvements of the farm-to-market value chain and reduce spoilage; and (vi) improve markets and incentives related to agriculture through reforms of prices, trade, and subsidies. The vision of what India’s economy in 2040 should and can look like, with an affluent and modern agricultural sector, will require fundamental changes in both the demand and supply sides of Indian agriculture. The vision is based not on projections but on how India’s agricultural sector needs to adapt to match the economy’s progress as a whole. This vision is plausible but it is by no means certain.
Indian agriculture has set new milestones in its progress. Since independence, major strides have been made in production of food grains, not only due to increase in area but also due to technology. As a result, the food grains production increased from 50.82 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 328.85 million tonnes in 2023-24. The phenomenal growth in agricultural production since independence has been triggered by higher input use, particularly purchased inputs as well as technology induced productivity enhancement, massive extension efforts, improved farm practices and, above all, ingenuity and hard work of Indian farmers since the Green Revolution Period in late 1960s. However, several challenges – some old and some new – remain. Growth of the agriculture sector has led to the unsustainable use of natural resources like land, water and bio diversity, spread of insects and pests, indiscriminate use of agro chemicals and adverse impact on ecology and environment. There is a need to create an enabling environment for this transition, through appropriate policies and institutions, an enabling regulatory environment, development of frontier technologies, as well as public and private investments in agriculture and agri-business. This will enable agriculture to play a key role in achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat, inclusive development, green growth and gainful employment during Amrit Kaal (NITI Ayog, 2023). This book is an attempt to present the present situation, strategies to be adopted during the Amrut Kaal to make country Atma Nirbhar Bharat by 2047 having focus on agriculture and allied sectors. The final papers come out from the eminent experts are briefly summarized here.
Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.
This open access book brings together varying perspectives for transformational change needed in India’s agriculture and allied sectors. Stressing the need of thinking for a post-Green Revolution future, the book promotes approaching this change through eight broad areas, indicating the policy shifts needed to meet the challenges for the coming decade (2021-2030). The book comprises of ten contributions. Apart from the overview chapter on transformational change and the concluding chapter on pathways for 2030, there are eight thematic chapters on topics such as transforming Indian agriculture, dietary diversity for nutritive and safe food; climate crisis and risk management; water in agriculture; pests, pandemics, preparedness and biosecurity natural farming; agroecology and biodiverse futures; science, technology and innovation in agriculture; and structural reforms and governance. The writing style of these papers written by technical experts is forward-looking—not merely an analysis of what has been and why it was so, but what ought to be. This is an essential reading for those interested in agriculture, food and nutrition sectors of India, and more so their interconnectedness.