S.J. Balaji

• PhD (Agricultural Development and Policy Analysis)
• Researcher at National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research

This study provides insights into the trends and composition of India’s agricultural exports, their competitiveness, export destinations, and potential opportunities for expansion. Nonetheless, the country faces several challenges related to quality standards, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and non-tariff barriers to enhance its standing in t...

Technical efficiency reflects the level of resource use in attaining the potential output. In this context, the present chapter has analysed the trends in technical efficiency, technical change and total factor productivity in wheat production across major wheat growing states. Further, major determinants affecting efficiency in wheat production we...

This paper examines productivity, profitability and resource use efficiency of cotton production in Palwal district of Haryana (India). The study is based on primary data collected from a total of 120 farmers selected randomly using two-stage sampling and data related to agricultural year 2017–18. Analytical tools like farm business analysis and pr...

The paper reviews the policies in three major input sectors; seeds, pesticides, and fertilisers. There are many new policies (regulations and acts) that are recently implemented, a few recommended and a few others yet to be implemented. The new policies and regulations are tailored for the changing dynamics in the input sector and are intended to h...

The paper has studied technology-policy tradeoff in doubling the income of farmers by selecting pulses, arhar and gram. The study has revealed that making available the existing technologies and factors at further scale to farmers through bridging yield gaps would greatly help in increasing the output at farm level. The study has shown that a sligh...

The study isolates the impact of DSR technology on farm household well-beings in the state of Punjab using PSM technique on data pertaining to 2017-18. The results conclude that adopters of DSR technology have reduced their labor cost, and irrigation cost significantly, besides a marginal improvement in yield of paddy. The cost cutting on inputs an...

The study captures the economic benefits of AVIKASIL-S, an estrus synchronization technology in sheep using an economic surplus approach in the Rajasthan state of India. The adoption of technology at the field level was at a nascent stage. Study simulated scenarios at different adoption rates of technology and discerned that technology has the econ...

India is the second-largest producer and consumer of sugar and sugarcane-based products. Changes in sugar production in India affect domestic and global markets of sugar and related industries. In this paper, a simultaneous equation model is developed to understand the interrelationship between sugar supply and demand in India using time-series dat...

India's sugar sector faces several price and non-price controls that distort prices and hinder the further development of the sector. This paper assesses the impact of policy interventions and technological change on sugar prices. It employs the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to estimate the interrelationship between sugar price and it...

Haryana ranks second after Gujarat in production of cotton among irrigated states of India. The present study provides the sources of inefficiency of cotton farmers in Palwal district of Haryana. The non parametric approach, Data Envelopment Analysis, has been used to determine efficiencies (technical, allocative, scale and cost) of cotton farmers...

Prioritizing and targeting less developed regions is one of the multi-pronged strategies for doubling farmers' income (DFI) in India. Using an indicator approach, the present study assessed and mapped agro-ecological sub-regions (AESRs) based on ten indicators representing production, infrastructure, information, marketing and income of the farmers...

Prioritizing and targeting less developed regions is one of the multi-pronged strategies for doubling farmers' income (DFI) in India. Using an indicator approach, the present study assessed and mapped agro-ecological sub-regions (AESRs) based on ten indicators representing production, infrastructure, information, marketing and income of the farmers...

Madhya Pradesh witnessed highest agricultural growth of 9.5 per cent a year during 2005-06 to 2014-15 among all Indian States. The last six years (2009-10 to 2014-15) were more spectacular for the state because agriculture grew at 15.4 per cent a year. It is interesting to know whether all districts of the state equally benefited and whether inter-...

This paper has documented the difficulties faced by farmers due to demonetization, facilities existing for making digital payments and farmers’ opinion about it. The study has used primary data collected through farm survey done in October 2017, almost a year after demonetization. The survey was made in three adopted villages under MGMG (Mera Gaon...

Income is the most relevant measure to assess farmers' economic well being and sectoral transformation. The crises and distresses plaguing the sector endanger the very livelihoods and welfare of the farmers. Indian Government with the intention giving enough policy thrust on income security, proposed to double the farmers' income by 2022, platinum...

Exploring linkages between agriculture, nutrition and human health has become an emerging field of research. Literature shows us both positive and negative externalities of agriculture on nutrition and health. Hence, the first step towards exploring agriculture–nutrition linkages would be ‘establishing’ the relationship between agriculture and nutr...

The livestock sector provides promising opportunities and is assumed to bring desired growth in farmers’ income, especially in less and poor endowed regions. The present study has delineated the entire country into four zones, viz. Least Performing Zone (LPZ), Average Performing Zone (APZ), Good Performing Zone (GPZ) and Well Performing Zone (WPZ)...

Indian agriculture is essentially monsoon and market-dependent, and suffers frequent distresses posing threat to the welfare of farmers as well as interest in farming. Declining farm productivity and income have serious implications on rural prosperity and overall economy. Hence, increasing the real farm income, i.e. nominal (actual) income adjuste...

In line with the first law of geography, employment diversification take place in clusters-as 'hot spots' and 'cold spots'. Farm households organise themselves on economic activities in part based on their neighbourhoods' preferences. In other words, neighbourhoods tend to be clusters of households with similar preferences. Part-time-farming approa...

The policy brief narrates the pesticide use in Indian Agriculture. We briefly discusses trends in consumption, production, trade and market structure of pesticide in India. We also discussed the registration, quality control, environmental issues in pesticide industry.

This paper aims to identify the components of change in production of major crops in irrigated and rain fed zones of Tamil Nadu, India. The study observed high instability in paddy, pulses, sugarcane, cotton, groundnut, tapioca and banana production in both the zones. The results of component change in variance in production showed that paddy, puls...

This study attempts to study consumption pattern in relatively smaller region household consumption choices are location specific and vary highly in micro environments. Results reveal that households incur more or less equal expenses on food and non-food commodities. Within food expenditure, more than half of the share spent on high value foods suc...

The study has empirically revealed that the widely discussed 'calorie-consumption puzzle' appears to have disappeared in the recent years and has established a positive marginal effect of income on dietary energy intake among Indian households. Nevertheless, nutritional effect of improvement in income varies across expenditure-classes, and rural an...

This paper examined the agricultural vulnerability for six agro-climatic zones of TamilNadu and identified the farmers' coping strategies with respect to the perceived climate change in the most vulnerable zone. Results indicated that among the six zones, Southern zone was highly vulnerable to climate change. The climate change impact in the study...

The present study attempts to analyse the major changes in cost structure in rainfed and irrigated cotton producing states of India and identify the forces governing changing cost structure for the period 1995-2013. It also attempts to examine the impact of irrigation on cotton yield. It employs 'Panel Fixed Effects Instrumental Variable (IV) Regre...

This study examines the question of convergence in land and labour productivity in Indian agriculture between 1991 and 2011. The tendency of low-productivity states to catch up with high-productivity states is studied through the unconditional β-convergence approach, and the operation of Galton’s fallacy through growth-terminal productivity-level r...

Resource endowments specific to a given agrarian region determine pattern of input use and efficiency, thereby costs and returns involved in crop production. Scarcity of water is the foremost factor that critically limits the economic potential and restricts a farmer from maximising his output; thereby profit, despite the role of other factors like...