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,

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,

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,

Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods: A Synthesis

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Propagation characteristics of surface plasmon waves on Au, Ag and Al at optical wavelengths

In this paper the propagation characteristics of Surface Plasmon Waves (SPWs) which exists on noble metals like gold (Au), silver (Ag) and aluminium (Al) due to the formation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs), have been evaluated theoretically and simulated with the help of MATLAB programming language. The variation of the propagation constant, the attenuation coefficient and penetration depth inside the metal and the dielectric has been evaluated. The variations of the spot size width with the propagating wavelength also have been determined for the metals. It has been found that highly conducting metals Au and Ag provide a strong confinement to the SPWs than Al at optical frequencies as the spot size width of the former is found to be nearly 10 µm less than that of the later. The comparative study reveals that metal having higher conductivity can support a more confined SPW, having a lower penetration depth than metals of lower conductivity at terahertz frequencies when its dielectric constant assumes a negative value. When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/2790

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,

Strategies for pigeonpea improvement

In order to feed an ever-increasing population, it is essential to deal yield reducing factors. Climate smart crop varieties that yield more with fewer inputs will be required to achieve the success. In this scenario pigeonpea plays an important role as it can stand in relatively harsh environmental conditions. Hybrid breeding along with the pure line breeding, genetic resources and genomics advances are enriching this crop. However, the pigeonpea improvement program must be re-oriented in order to deal with the yield-reducing factors and to break the yield plateau

Effect of feeding three different formulated feeds having different protein levels on the growth of angel fish (Pterophyllum scalare) juveniles

Experiment was conducted to study the effect of dietary protein level on growth and nutrient utilization by angel fish (Pterophyllum scalare) juveniles. Fifty-four juveniles (average wt. 2-2.5 g) were equally divided in three treatments with each of three replicates. Three formulated diets with graded protein levels, T1 (35% CP), T2 (40% CP) and T3 (45% CP) were fed to juveniles for 45 days. A trend of higher weight gain %, SGR, FER and PER was found with the increased CP level in the feed. Feed intake was similar in all the groups. T3 group fed with 45% CP registered highest weight gain % (43.26 ± 2.07), SGR (0.78 ± 0.04), FER (0.29 ± 0.01), which were significantly higher (P<0.05) than the T1 and T2 groups. Protein digestibility of T2 and T3 groups was significantly higher than the T1 group. Survival was similar in all the experimental groups. Diet with 45% CP with protein energy ratio of 112.62 mg protein/K cal. is ideal for juvenile angel fish for indoor rearing

Synthesis and Characterization of Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide (CIGS) Nano-Crystalline Powder using SPEX Mill

The CuIn1 – xGaxSe2 (CIGS) (x = 0.3) nanocrystalline powder was synthesized by reacting to its constituent elements i.e. Copper, Indium, Gallium, and Selenium in a SPEX mill. The SPEX mill is a high-energy mill where the reaction between constituent elements takes place in solid-state to form a nanocrystalline compound powder. SPEX mill consists of tungsten lined hardened steel vials and tungsten carbide balls are used as grinding media. Three different size grinding media was used with ball to charge ratio of 10 : 1. The optimization of milling time was studied to obtain CIGS nanocrystalline powder using SPEX mill. The phase analysis by X-ray diffraction shows the formation chalcopyrite (tetragonal) structure of CIGS after 4 h of high-energy milling with an average crystallite size of 10-13 nm. Raman spectra peak at 174 cm – 1 confirms the formation of the CIGS phase. The compositional analysis by EDAX confirms the formation of the stoichiometric composition of CIGS. This study reveals that it is possible to synthesize CIGS nanocrystalline powder using SPEX mill