Does a farmer's knowledge of minimum support price (MSP) affect the farm-gate price? Evidence from India

Purpose – This paper examines whether farmers' knowledge of the minimum support prices (MSPs) affects farm-gate prices. MSP is the minimum guaranteed price for agricultural commodities announced by the Government of India for 24 commodities. Most farmers in India prefer to sell their produce at the farm-gate due to a small marketable surplus and hence do not directly benefit from MSP. The authors test the common argument in the political discourse that if farmers have knowledge of MSP, then they can bargain with traders during the farm-gate transaction and demand a better price close to MSP. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use matching methods to examine the impact of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices. Findings – Using nationally representative data, the authors show that there is no empirical evidence that the knowledge of MSP of the crops leads to higher bargaining power and better farm-gate prices. Practical implications – Price information (MSP in this case) alone cannot improve the bargaining power of farmers and result in a better price realization. As a safety net, MSP fails in the absence of procurement of products by the government. This also raises the question of the equitability of the price support system in India and calls for a rethink of the MSP policy. Originality/value – This study is the first of its kind to examine the anchoring effect of knowledge of MSP on farm-gate prices using a nationally representative dataset

Analysis of genetic diversity among Indian niger [ Guizotia abyssinica (L. f.) Cass.] cultivars based on randomly amplified polymorphic DNA markers

Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) markers were used to estimate genetic diversity among 18 cultivars of niger from India. Total genomic DNA was extracted and subjected to RAPD analysis using 80 arbitrary 10-mer primers; 17 primers were selected, which yielded a total of 124 bands, 41.20% of them polymorphic. None of the primers produced unique banding pattern for each cultivar. RAPD data were used to calculate a Squared-Euclidean Distance matrix which revealed a minimum genetic distance between cultivars JNC-6 and N-48 and a maximum distance between IGP-76 and JN-30. Based on the distance matrix, a cluster analysis was done using a minimum variance algorithm. The dendrogram generated, based on Ward\u2019s method, grouped 18 niger cultivars into two major clusters. The first cluster consisted of early maturing cultivars (e.g. N-129 and N-134; 80-90 days), and the second of late maturing cultivars (e.g. GA-8 and GA-9; 135-145 days). The present study shows that there is high diversity among the niger cultivars tested and indicates the potential of RAPD markers for identification and maintenance of niger germplasm for crop improvement purposes

A Survey on Energy Efficient Routing Protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks

Energy efficiency is one of the critical issues in the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), since sensor devices are tiny and integrated with a limited capacity battery. In most of the advanced applications, WSNs operate in very harsh areas and not under supervision of human controls. Routing protocols play a significant role in energy balancing by incorporating the techniques that can reduce control overhead, proper data aggregation method and feasible path selection. It demands a unique requirement due to its frequent topology changes and distributive nature. One of the major concerns in the design of routing protocol in WSNs is efficient energy usage and prolonging Network lifetime. This paper mainly discusses different issues related to energy efficiency in routing protocols of all categories. It incorporates most recent routing protocols which improves the energy efficiency in various application environments. This paper also provides comprehensive details of each protocol which emphasize their principles and explore their advantages and limitations. These protocols belong to different classifications based on Network Structures, communication model, topology and QoS parameters. It also includes more relevant and prominent comparisons with all recent State-of-Art works

MEGOR: Multi-constrained Energy efficient Geographic Opportunistic Routing in Wireless Sensor Network

Providing better energy efficient network is the important critical issues in Wireless Sensor Networks. We presented Multi-constrained Energy efficient Geographic Opportunistic Routing algorithm that enhance the network lifetime based on efficient Geographic Opportunistic Routing. Geographic Opportunistic Routing algorithm uses single path multi hop routing technique in which packets are effectively routed from source to the sink node in a given geographical region. Proposed algorithm is devised with unique parameters viz., Single hop Packet Progress, Packet Reception Ratio, Residual Energy and Energy Density to select intermediate next nodes to forward the packet to sink node. The MEGOR exhibits better results in terms of delay, reliability, energy efficiency and network lifetime when compared with earlier state_of_art works

Performance and Sustainability of Kudumbashree Neighbourhood Groups on Kerala: An Empirical Analysis

Using data from the field survey and secondary sources, the study attempts to analyse the empowerment of women in Kerala through Kudumbashree. Kudumbashree is initiated by the Government of Kerala as the state poverty eradication mission in the year 1998. At present, more than 41 lakh women in Kerala have been brought under the umbrella of Kudumbashree, which accounts to about 23 per cent of the total female population of the state. Out of the total membership, highest share is constituted by the general category, followed by OBC, SC and ST respectively. Districts with greater share in linkage loan possess greater share in count of micro enterprises also. More than 61 thousand Joint Liability Groups practice collective farming in a total area of 35 thousand hectares. More than 66 per cent of the neighbourhood groups (NHGs) in the sample were involved only in micro-finance, and the rest undertook some other entrepreneurial activities. The younger section of the society participated more in the Kudumbashree activities. Among all the NHGs, more than 75 per cent had members among whom more than half lie below poverty line (BPL). More than 80 per cent of the NHGs avail credit from the banks and scheduled commercial/ nationalised banks which form the major source of credit. Logit regression analysis indicated that sustainability was positively and significantly affected by the share of BPL members in total members, per cent of members availing loan and the amount of loan outstanding per member