Climatic Risks, Rice Production Losses and Risk Coping Strategies: A Case Study of a Rainfed Village in Coastal Orissa

Abiotic stresses observed in the village Kaudikol , district Cuttack, Orissa have been recorded for 8 years and analysed. Survey data collected for four years (1996-97 to 1999-2000) from the farmers of this village have been analysed to find out their livelihood system, importance of rice in this system and the coping mechanisms followed by them in case of loss to the kharif rice crop. The abiotic stresses have been found to cause flood / submergence to different degrees in 5 years, drought in 3 years and cyclone in one year out of the total 8 years, causing production losses to rice. The maximum losses to rice crop have been observed during 1999 kharif season due to cyclone. It has been found that rice is the major crop during the kharif season, covering up to 79 per cent of the total cultivated area with contribution of 21 per cent to total income. Service has been found to be the most important source of income, followed by rice and business. The average annual income of the farmers has been noticed to vary from Rs 23,329 for marginal farmers to Rs 84,072 for large farmers over the period 1997-98 to 1999-2000. Rice has been found to be the major source of income for medium than other categories of farmers. For large farmers, salaried job has been observed as the most important source of income. The marginal and small farmers have been found to compensate their rice income loss from sources like wage earnings, jute and rabi/ summer rice. Through non-farm income and crop diversification, the farmers have been able to reduce the effect of rice income losses to some extent. Therefore, more non-farm employment opportunities should be created in this area to increase income and living standard of the farmers. Development of submergence-tolerant varieties with high-yield is the priority area for rice research in this area. There is also a need to introduce crop insurance scheme for rice crop in this area.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Report on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Report on Artificial Intelligence in Healthcar

POPULATION PRESSURE, MARKET ACCESS AND FOOD SECURITY IN THE UPLANDS OF NORTHERN VIETNAM: A MICRO-ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

Upland areas in Vietnam account for two-thirds of its natural area and one-third of its population. These uplands are characterized by heterogeneous and fragile ecosystems, a high incidence of poverty, severe deforestation and soil degradation. Rice is an important staple which is grown in the upland fields using shifting cultivation and in intensive lowland fields. The predominantly subsistence-oriented agricultural production system of these upland areas is undergoing intensification due to rapidly increasing population pressure. Changes in government policies regarding uplands and improvements in access to markets have led to the evolution of market-oriented production systems in some areas. In addition, rapid improvement in the productivity of lowland rice following decollectivization has also affected the use of upland areas. The paper examines the effect of population pressure and market access on cropping patterns, cropping intensity, the extent of commercialization of production systems, land and labor productivity, household food supply and the overall level of poverty. The analysis is based on a cross-sectional survey of 980 farm households from 33 communes of six provinces during the crop year 1997-98. It is hypothesized that (a) the cropping intensity is positively related to the population density and is negatively related to market access, (b) labor productivity in agriculture is higher in areas with better access to market, (c) upland rice occupies proportionately smaller area of upland as the size of the lowland holding increases, and (d) the extent of food shortage depends on land and labor endowments as well as the access to markets. Reduced-form models were used to investigate these hypotheses. Cropping intensity was found to be higher in communes with a higher population density supporting the Boserupian hypothesis. Market access, which was specified as a dummy variable (low access and high access), affected labor productivity and cash income positively. Despite these positive effects, the agricultural production system was found to be predominantly subsistence-oriented with farmers striving to achieve food self-sufficiency even in areas where a lot of cash crop is grown. The proportionate area under upland rice was found to be related negatively with the size of the lowland holding indicating that an improvement in lowland productivity can help reduce the intensification pressure in the upland. Farmers with better access to market and with larger farms were found to have a lower incidence of food shortage than farmers with limited access to markets and with smaller farms. A simulation model was developed to project the likely effect of continued increase in population pressure on food production, labor absorption in agriculture, calorie consumption per capita and the extent of poverty. A simple life table was used to project the population by sex and age group for the next 20 years. The effect of rising population pressure on food production was simulated assuming that the current agricultural productivity of different land/labor quartiles applies to the households as they move across the quartile groups. The static projection indicated that while the labor force will increase by 75% in 20 years, labor use in crop production will increase by only 9%, thus showing the need to expand labor absorption in the non-crop sector. With the existing technology, crop production will increase by only 5% of its current value leading to a dramatic decline in per capita food supply. The growth in rice yield (both upland and lowland) of at least 2% per annum is needed to maintain the current per capita calorie intake. An improvement in the upland rice yield was found to be an important strategy in reducing the poverty of the low-income quartile group that depends mostly on upland rice. Given the size of the population growth, the overall reduction in poverty will require an expansion of employment in the non-crop and non-farm sectors. The paper concludes with recommendations that include (a) further expansion of market access and development of more effective marketing institutions, (b) a regionally differentiated approach to agricultural diversification that recognizes the environmental diversity, (c) improvements in food production technology, (d) expansion of income-generating activities such as agro-processing and (e) more effective population control programs.Food Security and Poverty,

Rice Ecosystems and Factors Affecting Varietal Adoption in Rainfed Coastal Orissa: A Multivariate Probit Analysis

Hydrology, Coastal Orissa, Rice, Probit analysis, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q15, Q16,

INVESTIGATION OF QUASI BI-SLANT RIEMANNIAN MAPS

Riemannian maps are generalization of well-known notions of isometric immersions and Riemannian submersions. In this paper, we defne and study a natural generalization of previously defned quasi bi-slant submersions [18] in the case of Riemannian maps. We mainly investigate fundamental results on quasi bi-slant Riemannian maps from almost Hermitian manifolds to Riemannian manifolds: the integrability of distributions, geometry of foliations, the condition for such maps to be totally geodesic, etc. At the end of the article, we give proper non-trivial examples for this notion

Sharp bounds on Coefficient functionals of certain Sakaguchi functions

We determine sharp bounds on some Hankel determinants involving initial coefficients, inverse coefficients, and logarithmic inverse coefficients for two subclasses of Sakaguchi functions which are associated with the right half of the lemniscate of Bernoulli and the exponential function. Further, we compute sharp bounds on the second Hermitian-Toeplitz determinants involving logarithmic coefficients and logarithmic inverse coefficients. We also discuss invariant property for the obtained estimates with respect to various coefficients

Chondromyxoid fibroma of patella: a rare case

Introduction: Chondromyxoid fibroma is a rare benign tumor with aggressive behavior accounting for less than 0.5% of all bone tumors. There are several case-reports of this tumor occurring in different bones. Case report: Here we report a case of 19 years old male with the tumor arising from the inferior pole of right patella which was treated by complete excision of the lesion. The histopathology report was consistent with chondromyxoid fibroma. Conclusion: Chondromyxoid fibroma is a benign but locally aggressive tumor which may occur at unusual sites

Confer ment ence on International Agricultural Research for Develop Effects of Farmers' Perceptions on the Adoption of Modern Rice Varieties in Nepal

Abstract everal modern varieties of rice have been released in Nepal to raise the productivity, a major pies about 50 percent of the total area under food S staple crop. Farmers have adopted these varieties to varying degrees, especially in rainfed areas. This paper attempts to identify factors that affect the adoption of modern varieties of rice. Farmers considered suitability of rice varieties based on several characteristics. They were more concerned with biotic and abiotic stresses, which probably reflects the high incidence of these stresses in the rainfed condition. Modern varieties were superior over traditional varieties for many characteristics except in terms of taste. It is hypothesized that farmers' perceptions regarding varietal characteristics play a key role in explaining adoption behavior. This hypothesis was tested using farm-level data from rainfed areas of Nepal. An econometric model that includes farmers' perception variables was found to be superior in explaining adoption behavior than the ones that include only the usual farm and farmer related variables. Farmers' perceptions of the varietal characteristics such as pest resistance, drought tolerance and suitability for making special products were important in determining technology choices in the areas where current adoption rates are quite high. It was also found that the farms and farmers' specific variables such as education of the decision maker and his/her experience in rice farming, and availability of extension services have significant effect on adoption of modern varieties. Research approaches that incorporate farmers' preferences for various characteristics of rice in breeding programs and extension strategies that are geared towards providing accurate information for efficient revision of farmer perceptions are needed to raise the adoption rate. Background and Aim of the Study Rice is the staple food crop of Nepal. It occu crops of 3.2 million hectares and its contribution to the total food supply is more than 50 percent. This crop alone contributes to about 40 percent of the total calorie intake. In order to increase the productivity, modern varieties (MVs) of rice were introduced in late 1960s in Nepal. Overall, the spread of MVs and associated technologies is concentrated in pockets of favorable irrigated areas, with farmers choosing to follow largely traditional practices in less favorable rainfed areas. Although over 48 MVs have been released in Nepal, limited spread of MVs and their low productivity continue to remain major constraints to increasing the rice production in Nepal. Analysis of factors constraining the diffusion of MVs, especially in the dominant rainfed ecosystem of Nepal, is hence, an important area of research

Pleiotropic morphological and abiotic stress resistance phenotypes of the hyper-abscisic acid producing Abo<SUP>&#8722;</SUP> mutant in the periwinkle Catharanthus roseus

The pleiotropic properties of aabo abo (Abo&#8722;) &#947;-ray induced mutant ofCatharanthus roseuscv. Nirmal, selected among the M2 generation seeds for ability to germinate at 45&#176;C, are described. The mutant produced seeds possessing tricotyledonous embryos, unlike the typically dicotyledonous embryos present in the wild type Abo+ seeds. In comparison to Abo+ adults, the mutant plants had short stature and lanceolate leaves. The vascular bundles in the leaves and stem were poorly developed. Leaf surfaces were highly trichomatous, epidermal, cortex and mesophyll cells were small sized and a large majority of stomata were closed. Besides high temperature, the mutant was salinity and water-stress tolerant. The abscisic acid (ABA) content in the leaves was about 500-fold higher. The genetic lesionabo responsible for the above pleiotropy was recessive and inherited in Mendelian fashion. The seedlings and adult plants of the mutant accumulated higher proline than Abo+ plants. The phenotypes ofabo abo mutants permitted the conclusions that (i) the mutant synthesizes ABA constitutively, (ii) both ABA-dependent and ABA independent pathways for proline and betaine accumulation are functional in the mutant, and (iii) cell division, elongation and differentiation processes in embryo and adult plant stages are affected in the mutant