Diversification of Indian Agriculture: Composition, Determinants and Trade Implications

The pattern of diversification across states/crops in India has been schematized and various determinants of diversification have been deciphered. To objectively confer the empirical resonance, values of Simpson index have been estimated. The diversification index (SID) has been found to range from 0.47 (WB) to 0.90 (Karnataka) in 1990-91 and from 0.40 (Orissa) to 0.92 (Karnataka) in 2000-01. The increase in diversification Index signifies shift towards non-foodgrain crops. In Karnataka, though the Index has increased, but the similar increases in area under foodgrain imply shift from coarse to fine cereals. Agricultural diversification is influenced by a number of infrastructural and technological factors. The coefficients have indicated that the presence of electricity and road density are negatively associated with the diversification. In the year 2001-02, large share of export earnings has come from non-traditional items, namely rice, fruits, vegetables, livestock and marine products, signifying positive boost to diversification. Indian agriculture has witnessed diversification with impressive improvements in the shares of livestock and fisheries sectors in the total income from agriculture. Within the crop sector, the diversification has largely been in favour of non-foodgrains crops in most of the states. However, diversification in these states has not been essentially for income generation, but also for the risk-mitigating proposition. However, harnessing the potential of diversification presupposes gradual restructuring of diversification hindering market institutions, infrastructure and quality standards.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Management of Risks in Agriculture: A Synthesis

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Sugar Industry in Uttar Pradesh: Efficiency Still Holds the Key

The sugar industry is a major agro-based industry of Uttar Pradesh where cropping pattern is largely subsistence-oriented and sugarcane is one of the important cash crops. During 2001-02, the state had 20.35 lakh ha area under sugarcane out of the total 44.03 lakh ha area under sugarcane in the country. The sugar industry has shown considerable instability in the level of production as a result of inter-dependence and inter-relationship between sugarcane, gur, khandsari and white sugar, leading to fluctuations in the production of sugarcane as well as sugar. These fluctuations emanate from the presence of various processing sectors and the differential governmental policies. Such an uncertain state of affairs is neither conducive to sound growth of the industry nor the growers. In view of this scenario, it was felt necessary to carry out an investigation, which can reveal the present status of sugar industry in terms of its efficiency in operations. The study has revealed that most of the mills were in the efficiency range of 60-80 per cent. Efficiency was higher in the private sector (81%), followed by the public (73%) and co-operative (66%) sectors. Though this study has advocated the continuation of partial decontrol policy, it has urged the policymakers to streamline strategies that promote stabilization of sugarcane economy and make the state a credible supplier of sugar in the international market, benefiting growers, processors and, in turn, consumers.Crop Production/Industries,

Volatile Price and Declining Profitability of Black Pepper in India: Disquieting Future

Historically, black pepper has been a highly tradable commodity; its domestic price, production as well as profitability are highly influenced by its international prices. In 2003-04, the domestic prices of black pepper plunged down to Rs 74/kg from a peak of Rs 215/kg in 1999-2000. The study has therefore been undertaken to identify the drivers for its production, examine the profitability of the farmers and analyse the price behaviour and mechanism of price transmission in black pepper. Like other major spices, the production of black pepper in India has increased substantially over the years. Area under the crop and lagged export quantity have been the main drivers influencing pepper production in the country. From the field survey in two major black pepper growing districts, viz. Idukki and Wayanad, it has been revealed that the production of pepper has become unremunerative due to depressed prices in the domestic and/or global markets coupled with increasing input costs. Further, from the projections for production and demand for black pepper during the period 2005-2015, it is learnt that its production is going to outpace the domestic demand in a big way. This requires a serious attention because until new and diversified export markets are not exploited, the farmers would face further crash in farm gate price due to huge surplus stock. From the co-integration analysis, it has emerged that the three series of prices — farm harvest, domestic, and export, have been moving together over the years and the prices have tended to find equilibrium faster in the long-run than during the preliberalization period. The availability of disease-free planting material and financial assistance on easy terms would help the farmers to replace the senile plantation for realizing increased crop yield and profitability. The specific policies for integrating farm harvest price with retail price will not only help the producers but also make these spices somewhat more affordable to the domestic consumers.Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

Is Futures Market Mitigating Price Risk: An Exploration of Wheat and Maize Market

Instability of commodity prices has always been a major concern of the producers as well as the consumers in an agriculture-dominated country like India. Farmers in a bid to avert the price risk often tend to go for distress sale and thereby reduce the potential returns. In order to cope up with this problem, futures trading has emerged as a viable option for providing a greater degree of assurance on the price front. Thus, futures markets serve as a risk -shifting function. In the present study, an attempt has been made to look into the mechanism of movement of spot and futures prices for two important food crops in Indian agriculture. The Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) test has been used for both the crops to check the stationarity of the time series data. Most of the series have been observed to follow the stationary pattern at the first difference. The cointegration test has been attempted to find out whether there exists a longrun relationship between spot and futures prices of various contract months for maize and wheat crops. However, there exists a short run disequilibrium between these two. It has been observed that the futures contract behave in an expected manner and there exists a mechanism for long-run equilibrium in the maize as well as wheat crops. This phenomenon of price convergence for both maize and wheat crops clearly states that the farmers are mitigating price risk as spot prices and future prices converges.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Maize in India: Production Systems, Constraints, and Research Priorities

Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Labour Migration in Indo-Gangetic Plains: Determinants and Impacts on Socio-economic Welfare

In India, male out-migration from rural to urban areas has increased in recent years, especially in the Indo- Gangetic regions of the country. This indicates that most of the developed regions of India are utilizing labour force of backward areas. The paper has investigated on labour out-migration from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to find its determinants and its impacts on farm economy. The analysis of determinants shown that the number of members in a family and their educational status have a positive impact on migration. As a result of male out-migration, the women left behind in the villages assume a major role in various farm activities resulting in the so-called ‘feminization of agriculture’. It has also empowered the female members of the migrant households in terms of enhancing their decision-making role in various activities. The study has observed some policy implications in terms of formation of self-help groups or labour societies to help out-migrants, organization of training programmes for capacity building of women, more thrust on education a girl-child and development of infrastructure in the rural areas.Labour migration, Feminization of agriculture, Farm-women empowerment, Impact on farm socio-economy, Agricultural and Food Policy, J61, J23, J31,

Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods: A Synthesis

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Termoreverzibilni mukoadhezivni in situ hidrogel za oftalmičku primjenu: dizajniranje i optimizacija koristeći kombinaciju polimera

The purpose of the study was to develop an optimized thermoreversible in situ gelling ophthalmic drug delivery system based on Pluronic F 127, containing moxifloxacin hydrochloride as a model drug. A 32 full factorial design was employed with two polymers Pluronic F 68 and Gelrite as independent variables used in combination with Pluronic F 127. Gelation temperature, gel strength, bioadhesion force, viscosity and in vitro drug release after 1 and 10 h were selected as dependent variables. Pluronic F 68 loading with Pluronic F 127 was found to have a significant effect on gelation temperature of the formulation and to be of importance for gel formation at temperatures 3336 ºC. Gelrite loading showed a positive effect on bioadhesion force and gel strength and was also found helpful in controling the release rate of the drug. The quadratic mathematical model developed is applicable to predicting formulations with desired gelation temperature, gel strength, bioadhesion force and drug release properties.Cilj rada bio je razvoj i optimizacija termoreverzibilnog sustava za isporuku lijekova koji gelira in situ. Sustav je napravljen na bazi Pluronic F 127, a sadrži moksifloksacin hidroklorid kao modelni lijek. U radu je primjenjeno 32 potpuno faktorijsko dizajniranje s dva polimera, Pluronic F 68 i Gelrite kao nezavisnim varijablama koji su kombinirani s Pluronic F 127. Kao zavisne varijable odabrane su temperatura geliranja, čvrstoća gela, jačina bioadhezije, viskoznost i in vitro oslobađanje lijeka nakon 1 i 10 h. Pronađeno je da Pluronic F 68 u kombinaciji s Pluronic F 127 ima značajan učinak na temperaturu geliranja u rasponu od 33 do 36 C. S druge strane, Gelrite ima povoljan učinak na jačinu bioadhezije, čvrstoću gela i oslobađanje lijeka. Razvijen je kvadratni matematički model pomoću kojeg se može predvidjeti temperatura geliranja, čvrstoća gela, jačina bioadhezije i oslobađanje ljekovite tvari

Peculiarities in the behavior of the entropy diameter for molecular liquids as the reflection of molecular rotations and the excluded volume effects

The behavior of the diameter of the coexistence curve in terms of the entropy and the corresponding diameter are investigated. It is shown that the diameter of the coexistence curve in term of the entropy is sensitive to the change in the character of the rotational motion of the molecule in liquid phase which is governed by the short range correlations. The model of the compressible effective volume is proposed to describe the phase coexistence both in terms of the density and the entropy.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, 3 Table