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Agriculture

Easing contracting frictions with machines: Evidence from Karnataka

Productivity-enhancing technology adoption in agriculture, which makes workers available for other economic sectors, has long been considered essential for economic development. Based on a field exper...

  • Articles

The 10,000 FPOs scheme ignores women farmers

In this piece, Shilpa Vasavada puts forth her concern that if we don’t revisit the new Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) guidelines with a gender lens, women in the agriculture sector will be left...

  • Perspectives

Gendering technological change: Evidence from agricultural mechanisation

Rising mechanisation in Indian agriculture has been accompanied by reduction in farm employment in rural areas, particularly for women. This article shows that the observed 32 percentage point increas...

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Are farm loan waivers really so bad?

Recent announcements by various state governments of their intent to waive farm loans to varying extents have been strongly criticised by the media and other commentators. In this article, Dr Pronab S...

  • Perspectives

Hazards of farm loan waivers

In theory, debt waivers are expected to induce the optimal level of effort from the debtor for loan repayment. However, repeated waivers may distort household expectations about credit contract enfor...

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Analysing the impact of government interventions in agriculture on consumption

In the context of bankruptcy, many important studies have examined the implications of debt relief on different real outcomes.  However, the decision to file for bankruptcy could be endogenous; exami...

  • IGC Research on India

The Effects of Food Policy on Cropping Patterns and Income Distribution in Rural Bihar

Bihar is unusual among the Indian states in the extent to which it remains a rural economy; government food policy can have profound effects on the level and distribution of income in Bihar. The objec...

  • IGC Research on India

How agricultural debt waiver impacts beneficiary households

How a large-scale and unanticipated debt-relief programme impacts beneficiary households is a question that has not been clearly answered by the existing literature. This column analyses the impact of...

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Unified agricultural markets: Where are the reforms lacking?

In April 2016, Modi government launched the e-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform – a pan-India electronic marketplace for trading of agricultural commodities. However, rather than ushering...

  • Articles

Indian agriculture: How to feed more people with fewer resources

While agriculture in India has achieved grain self-sufficiency, it has become cereal-centric, regionally-biased and resource-intensive. In this article, Swain, Price and Sharma discuss the rising res...

  • Perspectives

The crisis of farmer suicides

More than 15,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide per year, on average, in the last two decades – a suicide rate that appears to be higher than that of the general population. In this article,...

  • Perspectives

Moving past the mandis: A revolution waiting to happen

A revolution in agricultural marketing organisation in Gansu province in China led to a 50% increase in potato yields within the past 15 years. In this article, Dilip Mookherjee, Professor of Economi...

  • Perspectives

Transforming Indian agriculture: The role of credit policy

Despite various policy attempts at priority sector lending to poor farmers, very little progress has been made on the ground, suggesting problems in the design and implementation of these policies. I...

  • Perspectives

Using science to improve Indian agriculture

Five years ago, the Indian government imposed a ‘temporary’ moratorium on the commercial release of Bt brinjal – a genetically modified crop - even after it had passed through the due regulator...

  • Perspectives

Promoting the use of a novel water-saving agricultural technology among Indian farmers

The Met Department has forecasted a below-normal monsoon in India this year. This column analyses the demand for a water-saving agricultural technology — laser land levelling — among farmers in U...

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Recent Contributors

Parul

Parul Jain

Ministry of Agriculture

Rahul

Rahul Rao

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Kunal

Kunal Dasgupta

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

Samreen

Samreen Malik

New York University, Abu Dhabi

David

David Blakeslee

New York University, Abu Dhabi

Ram

Ram Fishman

Tel Aviv University

Aaditya

Aaditya Dar

Indian School of Business

Karan

Karan Singh Bagavathinathan

University of Göttingen

View all Contributors

Most Popular Agriculture Posts

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 ...

  • 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...

  • 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...

  • Articles