Download or read book Making pulses affordable again written by Joshi, Pramod Kumar and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rising prices and declining consumption of pulses cause concern in terms of both nutrition and food inflation in India. This paper outlines policy strategies to increase the availability of pulses at affordable prices in India and also points out limitations of some of the most common recommendations for achieving these objectives. There seems to be no option but to increase domestic production of pulses in India. The global supply of pulses is limited compared with India’s needs, and sizable imports by India are bound to increase world prices. Domestic production of pulses in India is most likely piecewise inelastic, meaning that small price increases do not translate into a significant supply response. Because farmers face both production and marketing risks, they increase pulse area and intensify production only when there is a large increase in expected prices that covers the risk premium. Droughts, too, are a major risk for pulses. Access to one or two protective irrigations during the growing season can possibly lead to sizable increases in pulse production and reduce the production risk. The har khet ko paani (assured irrigation) initiative under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) program should give priority to pulse-producing areas. The minimum support price (MSP) for pulses, without direct government procurement, helps traders more than farmers because it acts as a focal point for tacit collusion among traders. Farmers will benefit from the MSP only if it is raised substantially from its current levels. The increase in farmgate prices due to a higher MSP will not necessarily lead to an increase in the retail price of pulses because much of the wedge between farmgate prices and consumer prices is traders’ margin. Including subsidized pulses in public distribution systems can save households some money, but it has only a small effect on total consumption of pulses and almost no effect on total protein intake. We suggest, as more potent solutions, investing in research and extension for pulses, aggregating pulse growers into farmer producer organizations, and paying pulse growers or pulse-growing areas for the ecosystem services offered by pulses.

Download or read book Pulses for Food and Nutritional Security of India written by Poornima Varma and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-08-20 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth analysis of India’s pulses sector in terms of production, prices, markets, and trade. Pulses play a pivotal role in a developing country like India for all categories of people due to its rich protein content (double that of wheat and three times more than that of rice). Despite being an important crop from the point of view of food, nutrition, and environmental security, the focus of food security policies in developing countries has been more on wheat and rice production. This book analyses factors influencing the supply of pulses with a greater emphasis on government interventions such as minimum support price (MSP) and National Food Security Mission (NFSM), the effectiveness of MSP and factors influencing farmers’ access to MSP, the import dependency implications through a detailed import pricing behavior of major importers of major pulses. It investigates production, market dynamics, and trade implications related to two major pulses, chickpea and pigeonpea, produced by all pulse-producing States in India. Analysis of farmer's awareness of MSP and factors influencing access to MSP are undertaken through a comprehensive household survey from the States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh. Finally, the book analyses import implications and import pricing behaviour for all major pulses imported by India. The book would be very useful for researchers working on the issues of agricultural production and food security, for agriculture and agri-business students, as well as for policy makers to understand the inherent dynamics in the pulses sector.

Download or read book India s pulse policy landscape and its implications for trade written by Roy, Devesh and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2022-04-06 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper attempts to fill a knowledge gap by examining India’s pulse complex, consisting of production, consumption, and trade policies. India’s pulse policies are anchored in a cereal-centric farming system and prioritize national self-sufficiency as well as the mitigation of relative price increases in food. On the farmer side, government policy includes price support (a minimum support price [MSP]) for different pulses initially without procurement, but later backed by public procurement. The MSP plus procurement elicited a comparatively high supply response. Without procurement, the MSP worked only to anchor prices and benefit traders at the farmers’ expense. By not accounting for the needed risk premium (for a supply response) the MSP kept domestic production low. Even as the world’s largest importer of pulses, the scale of pulse imports in India have generally not been large enough to cool its markets and bring down domestic prices. Instantaneous supply adjustments by exporters in response to trade policy changes are difficult.

Download or read book Advances in Legumes for Sustainable Intensification written by Ram Swaroop Meena and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2022-06-29 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advances in Legume-based Agroecoystem for Sustainable Intensification explores current research and future strategies for ensuring capacity growth and socioeconomic improvement through the utilization of legume crop cultivation and production in the achievement of sustainability development goals (SDGs). Sections cover the role of legumes in addressing issues of food security, improving nitrogen in the environment, environmental sustainability, economic-environmentally optimized systems, the importance and impact of nitrogen, organic production, and biomass potential, legume production, biology, breeding improvement, cropping systems, and the use of legumes for eco-friendly weed management. This book is an important resource for scientists, researchers and advanced students interested in championing the effective utilization of legumes for agronomic and ecological benefit. Focuses on opportunities for agricultural impact and sustainability Presents insights into both agricultural sustainability and eco-intensification Includes the impact of legume production on societal impacts such as health and wealth management

Download or read book Using household consumption and expenditure surveys to make inferences about food consumption nutrient intakes and nutrition status written by Fiedler, John L. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-11-21 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Household consumption and expenditure surveys (HCES) are multipurpose surveys that are routinely conducted to collect data on household food consumption and availability in more than 120 countries. HCES are increasingly being used to calculate proxy estimates of food consumption, nutrient intakes, and nutrition status, often at the individual level. Rarely, however, do they collect information on meal participation, despite growing evidence that it is an increasingly important and variable component of the quantity of food consumed or available in a household. This paper explores the significance of adjusting for meal participation in making inferences about apparent food consumption and nutrient intakes. It focuses on two distinct sets of additional information requirements for enhancing the reliability and precision of measures of food consumption: (1) individual household members’ and household guests’ meal-eating behaviors, and (2) the number and apparent nutritional significance of meals. While the most comprehensive and precise accounting of intakes of individual food consumption and nutrients requires both types of information, the magnitude of the changes required in HCES questionnaires to capture them is likely to be prohibitive. Consequently, for many HCES, a “second best” approach may be the most effective method, at least in the short term. The paper empirically explores some of the relatively few HCES that currently attempt to capture some of these information requirements. In addition, it assesses their value-added to prioritize the global agenda for strengthening HCES measurement of food consumption in support of more evidence-based nutrition policy making.

Download or read book Limits to green revolution in rice in Africa written by Ragasa, Catherine and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper examines closely the constraints in productivity improvements and evaluates available rice technologies looking at the heterogeneity of irrigated and rainfed ecologies in 10 regions in Ghana. Employing yield response models, profitability analysis, and adoption models, results show various practices contribute to yield improvements in irrigated and rainfed systems including chemical fertilizer use, use of certified seed of improved varieties, transplanting, bunding, leveling, use of a sawah system, seed priming, and row planting. Evidence also shows that extension services on rice production are limited and that intensifying extension services can contribute to increases in rice yield.

Download or read book Comparing apples to apples written by Nin-Pratt, Alejandro and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has been apparent for more than a century that future economic progress in agriculture will be driven by the invention and application of new technologies resulting from expenditure in research and development (R&D) by governments and private firms. Nevertheless, it is conventional wisdom in the economic development literature that there is a significant underinvestment in agricultural R&D in developing countries. Evidence supporting this belief is provided, first by a vast literature showing returns on R&D expenditure to be so high as to justify levels of investment in multiples of those actually found, and second, from available data showing low research effort in developing countries as measured by the intensity ratio (IR), that is, the percentage of agricultural gross domestic product invested in agricultural R&D (excluding the for-profit private sector). This paper argues that the IR is an inadequate indicator to measure and compare the research efforts of a diverse group of countries and proposes an alternative index that allows meaningful comparisons between countries. The proposed index can be used to identify potential under-investors, determine intensity gaps, and quantify the R&D investment needed to close these gaps by comparing countries with similar characteristics. Results obtained using the new R&D intensity indicator with a sample of 88 countries show that the investment effort in developing countries is much higher than the one observed using the conventional IR measure. The new measure finds that countries like China, India, Brazil, and Kenya have similar levels of R&D intensity to those in the United States. To close the R&D intensity gap measured by the new index, developing countries will need to invest US$7.1 billion on top of the $21.4 billion invested on average during 2008–2011, an increase of 33 percent of total actual investment.

Download or read book Have Chinese firms become smaller If so why written by Yang, Qiming and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-23 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Normally as an economy develops, firm sizes increase. However, as measured by the employment rate, the firm size in China declined from 2004 to 2008. In this paper, we develop a structural dynamic model with heterogeneous workers to study the relative contributions of three factors to declining firm size: rising real wages, implementation of minimum wages, and the introduction of a new national labor contract law. While rising wages make a sizeable contribution, we find that the new labor law plays a dominant role in solving the puzzle. In comparison, the impact of minimum wages is more muted.

Download or read book Using cognitive interviewing to improve the Women s Empowerment in Agriculture Index survey instruments written by Malapit, Hazel J. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-10-14 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper describes the cognitive interviews undertaken in Bangladesh and Uganda in 2014 as part of the second round of pilots intended to refine the original version of the Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Index (WEAI). The WEAI is a survey-based tool that assesses gendered empowerment in agriculture. Baseline data were collected in 19 countries following the WEAI’s launch in 2012, but implementers reported a number of problems, such as confusion among both respondents and enumerators regarding the meaning of abstract concepts in the autonomy sub-module and difficulties recalling the sequence and duration of activities in the time-use sub-module. In our cognitive interviews, we asked detailed follow-up questions such as, “Did you think this question was difficult, and if so, why?” and “Can you explain this term to me in your own words?” The results revealed potential problems with the survey questions and informed the revision of the WEAI, now called the Abbreviated WEAI (or A-WEAI), which has less potential for response errors.

Download or read book Adoption of food safety measures among Nepalese milk producers written by Kumar, Anjani and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Food safety is the most vital component of food security. One option to ensure food safety is through enhancing compliance at the farm level. This study investigates the status, estimates the cost, identifies the determinants, and assesses the impact of compliance with food safety measures in milk production in Nepal. The study is based on cross-section primary data collected at the farm level from six districts of Nepal. These districts are known for milk production and capture the geographical and institutional diversity of milk production in the country. The study shows that the status of compliance with food safety measures at the dairy farm level is not very encouraging. The intensity with which food safety practices are adopted shows wide inter- and intra-district variations. This intensity depicts a positive relationship to herd size. The additional cost of compliance with food milk safety measures reveals an inverse relationship with herd size. The factors associated with the adoption of food safety measures are caste, number of children and elderly people in a family, household labor size, herd size, access to information, inspection for conformity with the safety and quality standards in dairy farming, perception of households about food safety assistance provided by milk buyers, and market outlet types. We also provide evidence of the impact of food safety measures on farm-gate prices and farmers’ profitability.

Download or read book New modalities for managing drought risk in rainfed agriculture written by Ward, Patrick S. and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper we explore the potential for a new approach to managing drought risk among rainfed rice producers in Odisha, India. Droughts have historically been a serious constraint to agricultural production in rainfed agricultural systems, with droughts resulting in significant reductions in both yields and cultivated area, in turn leading to significant impacts on rural livelihoods and food security. Scientists and policy makers have proposed various strategies for managing risks, with limited success. In this study we consider two such strategies, specifically drought-tolerant rice and weather index insurance. While neither drought-tolerant cultivars nor weather index insurance products are perfect solutions for adequately managing drought risk in and of themselves, there is scope to exploit the benefits of each and bundle them into a complementary risk management product, specifically through proper index calibration and an optimized insurance design. In this study, we explore preferences for such a complementary risk management product using discrete choice experiments in Odisha, India. We are able to estimate the added value that farmers perceive in the bundled product above and beyond the value associated with each of the independent products. We also show that valuations are sensitive to the basis risk implied by the insurance product, with farmers less enthusiastic about risk management products that leave significant risks uninsured.

Download or read book Using zero tillage to ameliorate yield losses from weather shocks written by Khan, Md. Tajuddin and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zero tillage (ZT) for wheat is one of the most widely adopted resource-conserving technologies in the rice-wheat systems in northern India. In areas of Haryana with rice-wheat systems, 36.5 percent of all farmers practice ZT on 35 percent of their wheat area. Yet the literature measuring the impact of ZT on farmers’ fields is scarce. This study fills this gap by using the data collected from a random sample of 717 farmers from 50 villages in 10 districts of Haryana. It applies the difference-in-differences method to five-year recall data on wheat yields in ZT and conventionally tilled plots of land to quantify the crop loss due to unseasonal rains right before wheat harvests in March 2015. The results reveal significantly lower wheat yield losses in the ZT plots than in the conventionally tilled plots. On average, farmers suffered yield losses ranging between 3.73 and 4.53 quintals per hectare in 2015 due to unseasonal rains. The loss was lower by 1.05–1.10 quintals per hectare in ZT plots. The analysis clearly shows that adoption of ZT helped in reducing crop loss in wheat by 24–28 percent, valued at 1,523–1,595 Indian rupees (Rs.) per hectare (approximately US$22.50 per hectare). The loss avoided due to ZT is nearly equal to the prevailing rental rate of the ZT machine (Rs. 1,500 per hectare) in Haryana. Climate models suggest that the incidence of short-duration acute hydro meteorological events is likely to increase in years to come. Such events are hard to predict and prepare for, and dealing with them hinges mainly on disaster relief. However, our results show that adoption of ZT is one possible way to reduce potential loss from some of these weather events and that ZT is therefore well characterized as a climate-smart technology.

Download or read book Export competition issues after Nairobi written by Díaz-Bonilla, Eugenio and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper reviews, from the perspective of developing countries, the recent agreement reached at the 10th WTO Ministerial at Nairobi related to export competition, including exports subsidies, food aid, export credits and guarantees, and state trading enterprises (STEs). The legal and economic aspects of the agreement are examined, and the relevance of banning agricultural export subsidies are noted. This eliminates some of the worst-case scenarios, if agricultural world prices continue to soften and the important margin of export subsidies still allowed under the WTO framework was to be used. But given the relatively longer transition period for some relevant products before export subsidies are completely banned, the paper argues for continued monitoring of the potential use of this instrument. The paper also discusses the other components of export competition, looking into the legal and economic aspects. Some suggestions about continuous work on transparency and monitoring of current practices, and further disciplines are also presented.

Download or read book Will China s demographic transition exacerbate its income inequality written by Wang, Xinxin and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-09-29 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demographic transition due to population aging is an emerging trend throughout the developing world, and it is especially acute in China, which has undergone demographic transition more rapidly than have most industrial economies. This paper quantifies the distributional effects in the context of demographic transition using an integrated recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model with top-down behavioral microsimulation. The results of the poverty and inequality index indicate that population aging has a negative impact on the reduction of poverty while its impact is positive with regard to equality. In addition, elderly rural households are experiencing the most serious poverty, and their inequality problems compared with other household groups and within group inequality worsens with demographic transition. These findings not only advance the previous literature but also deserve particular attention from Chinese policy makers.

Download or read book Agricultural extension messages using video on portable devices written by Van Campenhout, Bjorn and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-11-24 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To feed a growing population, agricultural productivity needs to increase dramatically. Agricultural extension information, with its public, non-rival nature, is generally undersupplied, and public provision remains challenging. In this research, we explore the effectiveness of alternative modes of agricultural extension information delivery. We test whether simple agricultural extension video messages delivered through Android tablets increase knowledge of recommended practices in seed selection, storage, and handling among a sample of potato farmers in southwestern Uganda. Using a field experiment with ex ante matching in a factorial design, we find that showing agricultural extension videos significantly affects farmers’ knowledge. However, our results suggest impact pathways that go beyond simply replicating what was shown in the video. Video messages may also trigger a process of abstraction, whereby farmers apply insights gained in one context to a different context. Alternatively, video messages may activate knowledge farmers already posses but, for some reason, do not use.

Download or read book Strong democracy weak state written by Resnick, Danielle and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-12-02 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the political and institutional prerequisites for pursuing policies that contribute to structural transformation? This paper addresses this question by focusing on Ghana, which has achieved sustained economic growth in recent decades and is broadly lauded for its environment of political pluralism, respect for human rights, free and fair elections, and vocal civil society. Yet, despite these virtues, Ghana remains unable to achieve substantial structural transformation as identified as changes in economic productivity driven by value-added within sectors and shifts in the allocation of labor between sectors. This paper argues that Ghana is strongly democratic but plagued by weak state capacity, and these politico-institutional characteristics have shaped the economic policies pursued, including in the agricultural sector, and the resultant development trajectory. Specifically, three political economy factors have undermined Ghana’s ability to achieve substantive structural transformation since then. First, democracy has enabled a broader range of interest groups to permeate policymaking decisions, often resulting in policy backtracking and volatility as well as fiscal deficits around elections that, among other things, stifle credit access for domestic business through high interest rates. Secondly, public sector reforms were not pursued with the same vigor as macroeconomic reforms, meaning that the state has lacked the capacity typically necessary to identify winning industries or to actively facilitate the transition to higher value-added sectors. Thirdly, successive governments, regardless of party, have failed to actively invest in building strong, productive relationships with the private sector, which is a historical legacy of the strong distrust and alienation of the private sector that characterized previous government administrations.

Download or read book What drives input subsidy policy reform written by Resnick, Danielle and published by Intl Food Policy Res Inst. This book was released on 2016-11-24 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When and why do suboptimal agricultural policies persist despite technical evidence highlighting alternatives? And what explains episodes of reform after prolonged periods of policy inertia? This paper addresses these questions by applying the Kaleidoscope Model for agricultural and food security policy change to the specific case of agricultural input policy in Zambia. Since 2002, the Farmer Input Support Program (formerly the Fertilizer Support Program) has been a cornerstone of Zambia’s agricultural policy. Over the years, however, many researchers have highlighted weaknesses in the program and proposed other options. Based on semistructured interviews with key stakeholders and intensive process tracing using media, donor, parliamentary, and research reports, this paper examines how the program initially began in 2002 and during subsequent periods of reform in 2009 and 2015. Based on the findings here, periods of reform for input support programs are most likely when there is a confluence of multiple factors. These include the emergence of a window of opportunity in the form of either a focusing event (for example, a food crisis) or an institutional shift (for example, a new president or new ruling party) that coincides with broad stakeholder support for empirically grounded alternatives, available material resources, and sustained commitment from politically important policy makers.