Managing Risk in Agriculture under Drought Situation in Uttar Pradesh: A Case Study

From a case study under the village level study (VLS), it has been found that in the drought agriculture year 2002-03, the farmers of Uttar Pradesh followed their best choice and own outlook for risk aversion and invariably preferred those crops and techniques which involved damage control and low investment and provided insurance against loss. The water harvesting for irrigation, intercropping, growing of low-value crops, high concentration for fodder and grain rather than grain alone, and preferential low-use of monetary inputs are some of the means commonly used by the farmers during droughts. It has been concluded that rainfall probability analyses would be a component of agricultural managing/ reducing risk while large area of the Indo-Gagetic plains is falling in the state. The major weakness in generating this type of information and analysis is that it provides no specific information about the upcoming season with which the farmer must deal. Some suggestions have been given to mitigate risk in agriculture. Need has been pointed out for preparing a draught vulnerability index for different districts. It has been realized that the IMD’s monsoon forecast methodology needs some serious re-thinking. The intensive climate information /farmer interface intensification of watershed programme; tighter agriculture risk management, and sustained crop diversification will have to be considered. It has been suggested that the preparedness measures can be taken by two different agencies: the assisting agency, and the drought-prone areas themselves. Drawing on field information assembled from drought relief performance, state government may develop a way of drawing inference from experience. A particular activity in drought situation should be analyzed and assessed by degree of success, with the region given for the results. These judgments may be recorded and filed in a retrieval system called ‘lessons learnt’; which could be used as a useful reference source in deciding such question as what quantities are required to care for a particular number of people under a particular kind of environment or situation. The contingency plan for drinking water, irrigation water, food security, cropping system, drought warning system and research on drought- resistant varieties of crops may be updated.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Linking Small Farmers to Emerging Agricultural Marketing Systems in India—The Case Study of a Fresh Food Retail Chain in Punjab

Retail chain, small farmers, agricultural marketing system, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q13, Q10,

Efficiency and distribution in contract farming:The case of Indian poultry growers

This paper is an empirical analysis of the gains from contract farming in the case of poultry production in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The paper finds that contract production is more efficient than noncontract production. The efficiency surplus is largely appropriated by the processor. Despite this, contract growers still gain appreciably from contracting in terms of lower risk and higher expected returns. Improved technology and production practices as well as the way in which the processor selects growers is what makes these outcomes possible. In terms of observed and unobserved characteristics, contract growers have relatively poor prospects as independent growers. With contract production, these growers achieve incomes comparable to that of independent growersContract Farming, Contracting, Poultry, Vertical Integration

Sources of agricultural growth in India: role of diversification towards high-value crops

"This study examines the sources of crop income growth in Indian agriculture over the 1980s and 1990s. Using a method developed by Minot (2003), the analysis decomposes crop income growth into the contribution of yield increases, area expansion, price increases, and diversification from low-value crops to higher-value crops. The results confirm that at the national level, technology (higher yield) was the main source of crop income growth during 1980s, while rising prices and diversification emerged as the dominant sources of growth in agriculture during 1990s. Diversification towards higher-value crops such as fruits and vegetables accounted for about 27% of crop income growth in the 1980s and 31% in the 1990s. However, these national averages hide substantial regional variation. In the grain-dominated northern and eastern regions, price increases were the most important source of growth during 1990s, while in the southern and western regions crop income growth was led by diversification into higher-value crops. The results reflect the slowing growth of wheat and rice yields in India, as well as the growing importance of diversification into higher-value crops. Restoring the growth in grain yields will require investment in agricultural research and development, while facilitating further diversification involves institutional development to better link small farmers with growing markets for high-value commodities. " Author's AbstractCrops, income growth, Agriculture, Grain production, Agricultural research, Research and development, High value commodities, Crop yields, Prices, High-value crops, Decomposition,

Efficiency and distribution in contract farming: the case of Indian poultry growers

"This paper is an empirical analysis of the gains from contract farming in the case of poultry production in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. The paper finds that contract production is more efficient than noncontract production. The efficiency surplus is largely appropriated by the processor. Despite this, contract growers still gain appreciably from contracting in terms of lower risk and higher expected returns. Improved technology and production practices as well as the way in which the processor selects growers are what make these outcomes possible. In terms of observed and unobserved characteristics, contract growers have relatively poor prospects as independent growers. With contract production, these growers achieve incomes comparable to that of independent growers." Authors' AbstractContract farming, Poultry, Vertical integration,

Demand Projections for Foodgrains in India

Demand for foodgrains has been estimated for India for the years 2011-12, 2016-17 and 2021-22, by accounting for the factors like urbanization, regional variations in consumption pattern, shifts in dietary pattern and income distribution, limit on energy requirement and changes in tastes and preferences of consumers for food varieties. Indirect demand including ‘home away demand’ has also been considered in working out these food demand projections. Policy scenario has been presented and yield targets for the years 2011-12, 2016-17 and 2021-22 have been projected to meet the demand of foodgrams in these years.Agricultural and Food Policy,

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

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

Role of the Power Supply and Inter-electrode Gap in Electrochemical Honing Process

AbstractThe process performance of electrochemical honing (ECH) is often increased by the use of the appropriate and optimal input process parameters. This study focuses on the types of power supply and inter-electrode gap in ECH of spur gears, with the aim to determine which parameters are most significant for the required output. Based on the experimental findings, pulse assisted ECH gives marginal improvement in surface finish at the cost of three times higher processing time as compared with direct current ECH and higher value of IEG up to 1mm helps to give controlled anodic dissolution in ECH of spur gears

Genetic study for epistatic gene effects for major yield contributing traits against drought in rice

The study subjected to estimate gene effects and inheritance of quantitative traits of rice with Generation Mean Analysis (GMA). Segregation analysis and estimation of genetic parameters under epistatic model indicated partial dominance and importance of additive effects in the inheritance of drought tolerance, respectively. In present study, absence of epistasis by scaling tests was recorded only for plant height in cross NDR-359 x P0 1564, grains per panicle in cross DSL- 63-8 x NDR- 359, test weight in cross Sarjoo-52 x P0 359, harvest-index in cross NDR-359 x P0 1564 and spikelets per panicle in cross Sarjoo-52 x P0 359 and NDR-359 x P0 1564 in irrigated condition and days to 50 per cent flowering in cross P0 359 x Sonam and harvest-index in cross NDR-359 x P0 1564 in drought condition. In remaining cases, existence of epistasis was observed in either one or both conditions by one or both types of scaling tests. The presence of complementary epistasis in cross P0 359 x Sonam and P0 1564 x Sarjoo-52 would make progress through selection procedures exploiting additive gene actions faster while existence of duplicate epistasis in cross NDR-359 x P0 1564 would have reverse impact. The non-additive gene effects in NDR-359 x P0 1564 for grain yield plant-1may also be utilized for facilitating development of pureline cultivars by involving population improvement methods. Our study concluded that for a large number of traits in six crosses, dominance gene effects and epistatic interactions were significant under drought and irrigated conditions implying that utilization of heterosis through hybrid varieties will act as a budding choice

Does a surface attached globule phase exist ?

A long flexible neutral polymer chain immersed in a poor solvent and interacting with an impenetrable attractive surface exhibits a phase known as surface attached globule ({\bf SAG}) in addition to other adsorbed and desorbed phases. In the thermodynamic limit, the {\bf SAG} phase has the same free energy per monomer as the globular phase, and the transition between them is a surface transition. We have investigated the phase diagrams of such a chain in both two- and three- dimensions and calculated the distribution of monomers in different domains of the phase diagram.Comment: 7 pages, 7 postscript figure