05 July, 2024The ‘cereal gap’: Looming issues in India’s foodgrain policy
Cereal production in India recently crossed 300 million tonnes for the first time. In this post, Drèze and Oldiges point out that a major gap has emerged between the net availability of cereals and h...
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Jean Drèze Christian Oldiges 
18 April, 2024
- Perspectives
Watering the seeds of the rural economy: Evidence from groundwater irrigation in India
Over time, technological advancements accompanied with government energy subsidies have made groundwater the single largest source of irrigation in India. This study evaluates the impact of access to ...
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Camille Boudot-Reddy André Butler
- 12 January, 2024
- Articles
Land misallocation and industrial development
Although a large share of land in India is used for cultivation, large tracts of this are unproductive and produce low crop yields. In this post, Dasgupta and Rao explain their calculations to determi...
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Kunal Dasgupta Rahul Rao
- 07 February, 2023
- Articles
Improving farmers’ income: Learnings from a survey in Jharkhand
To work towards the central government’s goal of doubling farmers’ incomes by 2022, the state government of Jharkhand initiated the ‘Jharkhand Opportunities for Harnessing Rural Growth’ projec...
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Vinod Hariharan Jasmeet Khanuja Gurpreet Singh
- 30 November, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Crop insurance scheme 2.0: Implementation issues and weaknesses
Launched in 2016 and revamped earlier this year, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is Government of India’s flagship crop insurance scheme. However, it has been riddled with implementation challe...
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Ashwini Kulkarni
- 26 November, 2020
- Notes from the Field
Farm laws: First principles and the political economy of agricultural market regulation
Wrapping up the Symposium on farm laws, Mekhala Krishnamurthy and Shoumitro Chatterjee contend that regulatory reforms are an important but limited part of what must be both a more comprehensive and c...
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Shoumitro Chatterjee Mekhala Krishnamurthy
- 16 October, 2020
- Perspectives
Farm laws: Potential for positive outcomes
Siraj Hussain contends that while the farm laws may have medium- to long-term benefits for Indian agriculture, following parliamentary processes for their passage and efforts to build consensus would ...
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Siraj Hussain
- 15 October, 2020
- Perspectives
Farm laws: Unlikely to bring transformative change
Sanjay Kaul discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the farm laws for all stakeholders – farmers, businesses, commission agents, and the government – and concludes that given the dynamics involved...
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Sanjay Kaul
- 14 October, 2020
- Perspectives
Farm laws: Design leaves much to be desired
Sukhpal Singh examines the potential implications of the farm laws in view of the existing mechanisms of agricultural marketing, and highlights certain design flaws.
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Sukhpal Singh
- 13 October, 2020
- Perspectives
Farm laws: Liberalisation of agricultural marketing is necessary
Providing his perspective on the farm laws, Bharat Ramaswami contends that the liberalisation of agricultural marketing is the necessary direction – a view endorsed in the past across the political ...
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Bharat Ramaswami
- 12 October, 2020
- Perspectives
Introduction to e-Symposium: Understanding the new farm laws
Would the farm laws help increase farmers’ incomes? Could farmers benefit from an expanded access to markets? Would they be more willing to engage in contracts with urban firms because of the law on...
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Ashok Kotwal
- 12 October, 2020
- Symposium
How self-help groups enable households to cope with climatic shocks
Climate variability and extremes, combined with a lack of appropriate insurance devices, pose a risk to rain-fed agriculture and large populations in developing countries. This article examines how se...
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Timothée Demont
- 23 July, 2020
- Articles
Food and agriculture during a pandemic: Managing the consequences
A critical fallout of the lockdown following the novel coronavirus pandemic has been a combination of confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety for farmers and consumers alike as to what lies in store in th...
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Sudha Narayanan
- 27 March, 2020
- Perspectives
Identifying the binding constraints of agricultural growth in Bihar
Out of the seven-year period set for doubling of farmers’ income by the government, four full agricultural years have already gone. This article identifies the binding constraints on farmers’ inco...
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Elumalai Kannan Sanjib Pohit
- 16 March, 2020
- Articles
Economic Survey 2019-20: How does it seek to address challenges of farm sector?
This year’s Economic Survey, the flagship document of the Ministry of Finance, was recently tabled in the Parliament at a time of economic slowdown and rural distress in India. In this post, Sudha N...
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Sudha Narayanan
- 05 February, 2020
- Perspectives
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Climate change and Indian agriculture
Indian agriculture remains vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, and the looming threat of climate change may expose this vulnerability further. This article presents findings from a study that uses ...
- Siddharth Hari Parth Khare Arvind Subramanian
- 16 August, 2018
- Articles
India's farm crisis: Decades old and with deep roots
In this Perspectives piece, Prof. Himanshu argues that the crisis in Indian agriculture today is not a new one; it goes back many years. Therefore, the problems of farmers cannot be addressed by the b...
- Himanshu .
- 12 April, 2019
- Perspectives
How new technologies can raise farm productivity
Lele and Goswami discuss the potential of new technologies in raising farm productivity, and the challenges involved in turning the power of information and other technologies into a farmer-friendly t...
- Sambuddha Goswami Uma Lele
- 06 December, 2017
- Articles