This open access book provides a clear holistic conceptual framework of CISS-F (competitiveness, inclusiveness, sustainability, scalability and access to finance) to analyse the efficiency of value chains of high value agricultural commodities in India. It is based on the understanding that agriculture is an integrated system that connects farming with logistics, processing and marketing. Farmer’s welfare being central to any agricultural policy makes it very pertinent to study how a value chain works and can be strengthened further to realize this policy goal. This book adds value to the existing research by studying the value chains end-to-end across a wide spectrum of agricultural commodities with the holistic lens of CISS-F. It is not enough that a value chain is competitive but not inclusive or it is competitive and inclusive but not sustainable. The issue of scalability is very critical to achieve macro gains in terms of greater farmer outreach and sectoral growth. The research undertaken here brings out some very useful insights for policymaking in terms of what needs to be done better to steer the agricultural value chains towards being more competitive, inclusive, sustainable and scalable. The value chain specific research findings help draw very nuanced policy recommendations as well as present a big picture of the future direction of policy making in agriculture.

This book provides the most recent understanding about climate change and its effects on agriculture in India. Further in-depth research is showcased regarding important allied sectors such as horticulture and fisheries, and examines the effect of climate change on different cereal crops. The individual chapters discuss the different mitigation strategies for climate change impacts and detail abiotic and biotic stresses in relation to climate change. The book provides an insight into environmentally safe and modern technologies approaches such as nanotechnology and utilization of underutilized crops under a changing climate. This book provides a solid foundation for the discussion of climate resilience in agricultural systems and the requirements to keep improving agricultural production. This book is an excellent resource for researchers, instructors, students in agriculture, horticulture and environmental science.

The book covers Indian agricultural development from the colonial to the present period. It examines how ruling class political ideology determined the agricultural policies from colonial rule. It considers both quantitative and qualitative aspects in all periods: colonial period to pre-green revolution phase, post-green revolution phase (early and late stages) and post-globalisation phase after 1991. India has achieved the ability to maintain food security, through enough food grain buffer stocks to meet the enormous public distribution system. But, with India’s entry into WTO in 1994, euphoria has been created among all types of farmers to adopt commercial crops like cotton cost-intensive inputs. Even food grain crops are grown through use of costly irrigation and chemicalised inputs. But they lacked remunerative prices, and so farmers began to commit suicides, which crossed 3.5 lakh. Government of India attributed this agrarian crisis to the technology fatigue and gave scope for second green revolution (GR-II). GR-I was achieved by public sector enterprise, whereas the GR-II as gene revolution is a result of private sector enterprise/MNCs. There is fear that opening up of the sector may lead to handover of the family farms to big agri-multinationals. GOI’s proposal to double farmers’ income by 2022 is feasible only when the problems, being faced by small, marginal and tenant farmers, are addressed in agricultural marketing, credit and extension services. Now, it is time to go for suitable forms of cooperative/collective agriculture, as 85 percent of total cultivators are the small and marginal farmers. This book is co-published with Aakar Books, New Delhi. Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the print versions of this book in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The costs of industrial agriculture are astonishing in terms of damage to the environment, human health, animal suffering, and social equity, and the situation demands that we expand our ecological imagination to meet this crisis. In response to growing dissatisfaction with the existing food system, farmers and consumers are creating alternate models of production and consumption that are both sustainable and equitable. In Growing Stories from India: Religion and the Fate of Agriculture, author A. Whitney Sanford uses the story of the deity Balaram and the Yamuna River as a foundation for discussing the global food crisis and illustrating the Hindu origins of agrarian thought. By employing narrative as a means of assessing modern agriculture, Sanford encourages us to reconsider our relationship with the earth. Merely creating new stories is not enough -- she asserts that each story must lead to changed practices. Growing Stories from India demonstrates that conventional agribusiness is only one of many options and engages the work of modern agrarian luminaries to explore how alternative agricultural methods can be implemented.

This open access book provides an evidence-based roadmap for revitalising Indian agriculture while ensuring that the growth process is efficient, inclusive, and sustainable, and results in sustained growth of farmers’ incomes. The book, instead of looking for global best practices and evaluating them to assess the possibility of replicating these domestically, looks inward at the best practices and experiences within Indian states, to answer questions such as -- how the agricultural growth process can be speeded up and made more inclusive, and financially viable; are there any best practices that can be studied and replicated to bring about faster growth in agriculture; does the prior hypothesis that rapid agricultural growth can alleviate poverty faster, reduce malnutrition, and augment farmers’ incomes stand? To answer these questions, the book follows four broad threads -- i) Linkage between agricultural performance, poverty and malnutrition; ii) Analysing the historical growth performance of agricultural sector in selected Indian states; iii) Will higher agricultural GDP necessarily result in higher incomes for farmers; iv) Analysing the current agricultural policy environment to evaluate its efficiency and efficacy, and consolidate all analysis to create a roadmap. These are discussed in 12 chapters, which provide a building block for the concluding chapter that presents a roadmap for revitalising Indian agriculture while ensuring growth in farmers’ incomes.

This open access book examines the interactions between India’s economic development, agricultural production, and nutrition through the lens of a “Food Systems Approach (FSA).” The Indian growth story is a paradoxical one. Despite economic progress over the past two decades, regional inequality, food insecurity and malnutrition problems persist. Simultaneously, recent trends in obesity along with micro-nutrient deficiency portend to a future public health crisis. This book explores various challenges and opportunities to achieve a nutrition-secure future through diversified production systems, improved health and hygiene environment and greater individual capability to access a balanced diet contributing to an increase in overall productivity. The authors bring together the latest data and scientific evidence from the country to map out the current state of food systems and nutrition outcomes. They place India within the context of other developing country experiences and highlight India’s status as an outlier in terms of the persistence of high levels of stunting while following global trends in obesity. This book discusses the policy and institutional interventions needed for promoting a nutrition-sensitive food system and the multi-sectoral strategies needed for simultaneously addressing the triple burden of malnutrition in India.

Biotechnology can bring major breakthroughs in agriculture. The book examines the experience of introduction of biotechnology in Indian agriculture, specifically, examining the performance of Bt cotton versus non-Bt cotton across India’s major cotton states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, which together account for nearly 70 percent of the country’s cotton production. Major advances in biotechnology have made it possible to directly identify genes, determine their functions, and transfer them from one organism to another. The advances have spawned many technologies and Bt cotton is one important outcome. Bt cotton has become one of the most widely cultivated transgenic crops and is currently grown in 21 countries - 11 developing and 10 industrialized countries. The Government of India was relatively late in permitting biotechnology, only approving the cultivation of three transgenic Bt cotton hybrids from April 2002. Many concerns were raised about their performance there was strong opposition from some quarters. In India, Gujarat and Maharastra were the first states to adopt them, followed by Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. Based on a sample of 694 farming households, the book examines and analyzes the performance on the yields, pesticide costs, seed costs, overall production costs and profits. It also reports on the environmental impacts, satisfaction with the technology and ways of improving its performance.