Innovations In Agriculture For A Self Reliant India

The book brings out an encyclopaedic picture of the potential areas of transformative Indian agriculture through innovations in science, technology, institutional and policy affairs directed in building a self-reliant India (Atmanirbhar Bharat). The book has addressed the challenges to make India free from hunger, poverty and undernutrition, and suggested interventions with focus on all-inclusiveness and sustainability, peace and prosperity, and resilience to climate and other volatilities. Most of these propositions are analogous to the Sustainable Development Goals – Agenda 2030, which India has committed to achieve. The book especially covers critical needs for development on different fragile ecosystems such as coastal, desert, hill, ravine and other marginal ecosystems. The book will act as very useful guidance for the policy makers, and development communities, and a reference document to academicians as well. Note: T&F does not sell or distribute the hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. This title is co-published with NIPA.

First published in 1979, Education, Innovations, and Agricultural Development investigates the effect of education on agricultural productivity and innovations that took place in the wake of the Green Revolution in North India, using a simultaneous equations model. The Green Revolution of the 1960s, with its twin aims of raising production and improving the quality of input, was expected to induce a majority of farming families to respond to policies and programmes devised for bringing about development in agricultural sectors. Focusing on the wheat-growing areas of Punjab and Haryana, where high yielding varieties of seed have been introduced extensively, it shows that general education up to secondary level has a significant impact on the diffusion of technology and agricultural productivity and that higher production in turn increases the demand for education. This book deserves to be read by all concerned with development in Asian countries; agriculture; developmental economics; and educationists.

Agricultural extension is in a great transition worldwide. The demand for public extension reform is greater than ever before. The agriculture knowledge infrastructure is evolving in a big way with the emergence of pluralistic extension actors and innovations to cater the needs of the farmeThis book is an attempt to document the past experiences and recent developments in the agriculture knowledge information systems. The compilation of 14 country s such as; Afghanistan, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, India, Iran, Mozambique, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe is intended to document the experience of extension systems. The fourteen country s highlight the worldwide agricultural extension reform measures (Decentralization, Privatization, Demand driven and Cost-recovery approaches), Institutional Pluralism (Public, Private, and NGOs) and Innovations (Farmer to Farmer extension, Participatory and Self-Help Group (SHG) approaches and ICT initiatives). The agricultural extension students, academicians, scientist, practitioners, administrators, and policy makers will find this compilation of extension experiences from the fourteen countries relevant for designing future reforms, advancing pluralistic extension system and also to integrating innovations in their extension approaches.

This book brings together unique experiences of India, China and Israel in overcoming economic, social, and natural resource challenges. Through its eleven chapters, the book captures the role of groundbreaking innovations in achieving unprecedented agricultural growth and stabilizing these nations. It provides a future outlook of the new challenges that will confront these countries in 2030 and beyond, related to tackling food and nutrition security, sustainable agricultural growth and adhering to improved food safety standards. This book provides useful insights for exploring technological innovations and policies that can address these future challenges and develop profitable and sustainable agriculture. This volume also highlights valuable lessons that India, China and Israel provide for the rest of the developing world where population is growing fast; natural resources are limited; and it is a challenge to produce enough food, feed and fibre for their populations. Tracing the historical past, this book is an impressive resource for academicians, policymakers, practitioners, agribusiness players, entrepreneurs in understanding the role of innovations in addressing future challenges.

This study contributes to the discussion on the effect of government versus NGO activities and is one of the first to compare different intervention strategies. Farmers cultivating the less-endowed dryland (not-irrigated) areas in India's risk-prone, semi-arid tropics, are confronted with the whims of nature like the unreliable monsoon and infertile soils. Most of them are resource-poor, owning small plots of land and having limited access to water for irrigation and capital, and cultivate low yielding crops. Hence, most farming households are not self-sufficient. The expectation that they would benefit from Green Revolution innovations, hardly materialized. In fact, having neglected dryland agriculture in its semi-arid tropics for decades, the Indian government implemented special projects to ameliorate the plight of these farmers only in the 1980s. In addition, various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) did the same. The present study compares the effects of two such projects: the World Bank financed Maheswaram watershed project implemented by the Andhra Pradesh government and a project implemented by a well-known NGO in that State, AWARE. Essential reading for the aid community, economists, agricultural planners, and anyone concerned with the future of Indian farmers.

Study conducted in Varanasi District, Uttar Pradesh, 1979-1980.