Surabhi Mittal

In India, Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) like the Public Distribution System (PDS), PM-POSHAN, and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), are a one-stop platform to meet a significant portion of the daily dietary requirements of the most vulnerable households, who also complement these meals through food purchased from markets and their ow...

Many Asian countries are working to bolster the nutritional emphasis within their SPPs. The increase in investments in social protection itself, coupled with a deliberate shift toward greater nutrition sensitivity, creates an expanding array of opportunities. This strategic shift facilitates more effective linkages between health and nutrition, foo...

In 2022 Nutrition International conducted an economic analysis of wheat flour fortification (WFF) to understand the potential impact of the revised standards. The analysis generated an up-to-date estimates of the possible health effects of the population and economic benefits for the country. Based on the revised fortification standards, this paper...

All pulses are disaggregated by major pulses to estimate their income and price elasticities in the Indian context. The hypothesis is that different pulses behaved differently in their consumption patterns in the food basket, their prices differ and some of them might not be easily substitutable because of strong regional preferences. We have estim...

The major objective of the study was to develop a set of recommendations and options for the government to consider in terms of the most feasible path for pursuing diet diversification with the goal of reducing the nutrition gap. The analyses were undertaken separately for each of the population groups - pregnant women, lactating mothers, children...

Global food security is impacted by climate change that further is linked with the challenge of low productivity, issues of diseases and pests, varietal replacement and sustainable input utilization. Given the role of wheat and barley in human food, animal feed and livelihood through industrial use, it is important to manage its production in a sus...

Like much of the world, Asia and the Pacific is in the midst of the fifth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, dominated by Omicron variant – few months following the Delta variant driven forth wave. As of 9 January 2022, about 65 951 296 people in the region had been infected (Figure 1) and more than 1 052 059 deaths had been recorded. The percentage of...

Understanding gender in context of a country like Afghanistan, which is primarily a patriarchal society and under conflict since decades is really challenging. This paper with the help of household survey, conducted in Afghanistan tries to understand the role that women play in Afghanistan in agriculture, with prime focus on wheat production. The o...

The paper examines the time allocation between paid work (wage earning or self-employed work generally termed as employment work) and unpaid (domestic chores/care work generally termed as non-employment work) along with wage rates, imputed earnings, and occupational structure among men and women and according to different social groups to establish...

COVID-19 and response measures have major economic implications, including for global value chains, and these implications are gendered. Consequently, unlike other chapters that are highly researched, this epilogue is a collective thought piece with our initial thoughts that might form the basis of future research. Large inequalities between women,...

Increased penetration of information and communication tools (ICTs) and mainly mobile phones provide unique opportunities for bridging the gaps of information, technology use, and also gender disparity. The overall goal of using mobile phone-enabled information delivery mechanisms is to promote inclusive growth by reducing the knowledge gap both be...

The original article has been corrected. The copyright holder has been update to © The Author(s) and the article is now published with open access.

Farmers work under challenging situations of crop failure due to unpredictable weather, poor access to quality inputs, lack of knowledge of modern technologies, etc. Many of the problems can be resolved if farmers are supported by timely information service network which proactively articulate their daily problems. The predominant source of informa...

Evidence from climate-smart village (CSV) approach to mainstream climate-smart agriculture (CSA) demonstrates improved productivity, income, and reduced climatic risks. However, its contribution to gender empowerment in diverse farming households is not documented. This study creates a Gender Empowerment Index for climate-smart villages (GEI-CSV) b...

The climate service advisory was piloted in two states of India-Haryana and Bihar-covering 46 villages. Households were randomly selected in these villages to receive voice-based messages on individual farmers' mobile phones during the project period 2013-2015. The messages had content related to weather, seed varieties, climate-smart agricultural...

Purpose The key informants in a village setup were studied to understand the existing social and knowledge systems of farmers, their structure, and relationships between different actors. The purpose is to identify different channels of information and use them as a means to disseminate agricultural technologies and related information to farmers....

India is one of the largest producers as well as exporters of some major food commodities, and is often criticized for its protectionist measures to curb transmission of price shocks from international markets. This paper examines if such policies are necessary to protect domestic consumers from price fluctuations and what are their implications on...

Adoption of modern varieties of maize, characterised by higher genetic potential, is desirable from the viewpoint of increasing the maize yield level. At present, there is no well-structured and organised system for documenting the popular crop varieties and their area coverage in India. The present study attempts to fill such knowledge gaps by doc...

Doubling farmers’ income by 2022 is a paradigm shift in transforming policies and programs from production to income. Ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers is one of the several pathways to achieve the objective. In the Union Budget 2018, the Government of India (GoI) accepted the long-awaited demand of the farmers regarding the new minimum s...

Improving agricultural productivity across the sectors is important in order to improve farmer incomes. The present Union Government’s key agrarian agenda is doubling the income of farmers, and the state government is similarly prioritizing this. Increasing farmer incomes requires farmers to improve yields, have better productivity through the effi...

Maize is emerging as a major crop next to rice and wheat in India because of its increasing use as feed and fodder for livestock and poultry. The present study examines the impact of international maize prices on its domestic prices in India. To understand this, we examined the patterns, trends and volatility of domestic and international prices of...

In this study, adoption rates of modern wheat varieties in India have been estimated using expert elicitation methodology. The study has found that the wheat varietal output has increased during the period 2010-2015. The most widely cultivated wheat varieties in the study states are HD 2967, PBW 343, PBW 550, Lok 1 and PBW 502. The temporal and spa...

Crop diversification is seen as a means to improve income and also as a risk mitigating strategy. Using district level data of 318 districts from 16 states of India, and classifying the districts according to 12 agro-ecological zones and irrigation types, this paper examines the pattern of crop diversification and computes the Simpson Index and Her...

The mobile phone-enabled information delivery mechanism has the potential to reduce the knowledge gap between large and small farmers, and also across gender by creating awareness about new technologies and best practices. This article focuses on how access to information through the mobile phone makes women feel empowered if they are receptive to...

Several studies have recognized that the agriculture sector is one of the major contributor to climate change, as well as largely affected adversely by climate change. Agricultural productivity is known to be sensitive to climate change induced effects and it has impact on livelihood of families linked with farming. Thus it is important to understa...

Government of India has recently announced for special funds like National adaptation fund to handle market risks arising due to climatic variability. The operational protocol of this fund and other forthcoming initiatives have yet to be expanded, but through this paper we like to draw attention to some of the policies and programmes that the Gover...

Knowledge networks and social networks are the drivers of information sharing and they play an important role in diffusion of technology and related knowledge. In this study the key informants in a village setup are studies to understand the farmer’s network with an objective to understand the existing social, knowledge systems and their structure,...

Purpose: The paper analyzes factors that affect the likelihood of adoption of different agriculture-related information sources by farmers.Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper links the theoretical understanding of the existing multiple sources of information that farmer use, with the empirical model to analyze the factors that affect the farmer'...

he content of the book comprises of country chapters on mobile phone applications for agricultural extension from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe along with chapters on global review on m-agriculture initiatives, content generation process and socio-economic impact of mobile phone based agro-advisory services. This book delves into the devel...

Delivering agro‐advisories through mobile phones‐reality check? Though mobile phones promise new opportunities for reaching farmers with agricultural information, its potential remains unutilised due to several institutional and infrastructural constraints, argues, Surabhi Mittal and Mamta Mehar Over the past few years India witnessed several exper...

Rapid growth of mobile telephony and the introduction of mobile-enabled information services provide ways to improve information dissemination to the knowledge intensive agriculture sector and also helps to overcome information asymmetry existing among the group of farmers. It also helps, at least partially, to bridge the gap between the availabili...

Seed is the most crucial input in the crop production cycle. Although new seed varieties are developed and released frequently, they often do not reach the farmers because of underdeveloped and inefficient seed delivery system. This paper is based on the primary survey of 1200 farmers in the five states in the Indo-Gangetic Plains, and has analysed...

Policy Options to Achieve Food Security in South Asia pulls together all South Asian countries and identifies major issues of food security in the individual country. The chapters highlight issues such as initiatives and policies taken up in these countries to achieve the goal of food security and also critically evaluate the effectiveness of these...

Higher economic growth has led to diversification of the consumption bundle of households away from staple food. This has implications for the food policy as demand projections for different commodities impacts the farmers decision to diversify its production base which further has implications for the issue of food security. Thus it becomes import...

Deficits in physical infrastructure, problems with availability of agricultural inputsand poor access to agriculture-related information are the major constraints on thegrowth of agricultural productivity in India. The more rapid growth of mobiletelephony as compared to fixed line telephony and the recent introduction of mobileenabledinformation se...

The present paper presents the supply and demand trends of rice, wheat, total cereals, pulses, edible oil/oilseeds and sugar/sugarcane. It provides the demand and supply projections for food items during 2011, 2021 and 2026. These projections have been based on change in productivity levels, changes in price, growth of population and income growth....

Knowledge of demand structure and consumer behaviour is essential for a wide range of development policy questions like improvement in nutritional status, food subsidy, sectoral and macroeconomic policy analysis, etc. An analysis of food consumption patterns and how they are likely to shift with changes in income and relative price is required to a...

Telecommunication and more specially mobile phones have the potential to provide solution to the existing information asymmetry in various lagging sectors like Agriculture. India’s agricultural sector suffers from low growth rates and low productivity. Issues in access to information is a week point at every stage of the agrisupply chain. For small...

Food security is defined as economic access to food along with food production and foodavailability. Agriculture in the SAR (South Asian Region) is caught in a low equilibrium trapwith low productivity of staples, supply shortfalls, high prices, low returns to farmers and areadiversification - all these factors can be a threat to food security. Sou...

Telecommunication, especially mobile phones have the potential to provide solution to the existing information asymmetry in various lagging sectors like agriculture. India’s agricultural sector suffers from low growth rates and low productivity. Issues in access to information are weak points at every stage of the agri-supply chain. For small far...

Introduction The Indian economic liberalisation was initiated in the 1990s, but the opening up of the agriculture sector started in 1994. Reforms such as the abolition of minimum export prices on basmati rice, the removal of import controls on sugar, cotton and common rice and the reforms in the edible oil sector, among others, led to this agricult...

Recent Trends and Developments The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-2012) aims to achieve a sustainable growth at a rate of approximately 10 per cent by the end of the Plan period. One of the major challenges in realising this, is the poor performance of the agriculture sector. In the Tenth Five Year Plan period, the sector grew at less than 3 per cen...

Rich-country support programs for cotton and sugar producers are frequently claimed to be detrimental for developing-country farmers. This study investigates whether a reduction in protectionist policies for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development cotton and sugar producers would have a measurable effect on the welfare of Indian farme...

Food for Policy ? Reforming Agriculture is the first book of its kind to highlight the reforms needed to achieve a ?second Green Revolution' which will then make way for an ?evergreen' revolution in India. This book is a compilation of articles by experts who provide comprehensive solutions for the Indian agriculture sector. A unique feature of thi...

Productivity growth in agriculture is essential for the development of the sector. This paper has reviewed the developments in agricultural productivity related to the South Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The TFP growth and its contribution in production growth have been summarised for South Asia over the...

Rich countries use a combination of domestic market interventions and border protection or export subsidies as a part of their domestic policies. Developed countries such as the United States and the European Union (EU) resort to trade distorting policies to make their crop more competitive - both groups maintain high domestic prices for producers,...

This article diagnoses the factors that contribute to changes in cereal consumption at the household level across four expenditure groups, both for rural and urban regions. These factors can be decomposed into own price effect, substitution price effect, income effect and tastes and preferences.

The welfare of the producers are analysed with the main focus on small farmers. The analysis presented in the paper is an approximation of the general equilibrium analysis. The four parts of this approximation are: first, the estimation of the world price effect of removal of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) distortions...

In spite of being one of the largest producers of fruits and vegetables in the world, the export competitiveness among the Indian producers remains low. But with new marketing initiatives, the post-harvest losses and wastage due to poor infrastructure facilities such as storage and transportation are reduced to a considerable extent, yet a lot need...

Indian horticulture sector is constrained by low productivity, high cost of production, huge post-harvest losses, inefficient supply chain and poor market intelligence. The present paper has brought forward two case studies of SAFAL Market and Namdhari Fresh which have been successful in over-coming the constraints that horticulture sector is facin...

The paper looks into the level of integration of commodity markets in India, across centres and states using consumer price data. It measures the extent to which domestic markets for goods in India are integrated, and recommends policy options to facilitate integration. The paper addresses questions: Are domestic markets for goods integrated across...

The sustainability issue of the crop productivity is fast emerging. The post-Green Revolution phase is characterized by high input-use and decelerating total factor productivity growth (TFPG). The agricultural productivity attained during the 1980s has not been sustained during the 1990s and has posed a challenge for the researchers to shift the pr...

A further likely lowering of edible oil import tariffs under the WTO may leave India with less scope to provide protection to its domestic oilseeds industry in the future. Besides, in such a situation, India's already high level of imports will make it particularly vulnerable to global price volatility. The country needs to urgently boost its domes...

The paper analyses the total factor productivity (TFP) of crop sector at the district/region levels and identifies the sources of TFP growth in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The study concludes that TFP growth is decelerating and large areas under crops in a number of districts are showing clear signs of un-sustainability. Research, extension, education...

Human resource development is central to adoption of technology and promotion of sustainable development and alleviation of poverty. Education is the most crucial resource which explains the changes that take place in individuals in their various stages of development. Improvements in quality of human resources is essential for development. Educati...

Horticulture can be promoted as a means of agro-diversification for the second green revolution in India, providing the much-needed impetus to the growth of agricultural sector, through increase in trade, income and employment. The Indian agriculture is diversifying towards production of high-value commodities along with the increasing role of smal...

Uttarakhand, in spite of being a small state, has certain key features that make itdistinct from other states of the country and highlights its potential for development.However, development has predominantly been in the plains, and the hill districtshave been left behind. All the hill districts have subsistence farming as their maineconomic activi...