Srijit Mishra

Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) & Support Systems for Ecological Fertilization in Indian Agriculture

Srijit Mishra et al. — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:07:27 PST

The intensive agriculture model was introduced in India in the 1960s as part of the Green Revolution. This brought in a package which included massive irrigation projects, new high yielding input responsive varieties and chemical fertilizers. Initially, it did increase production. But now, the food production is stagnating and one has been observing diminishing returns and falling dividends, especially in the agriculture intensiveareas of the country.

The chemical and synthetic fertilizers, particularly Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK), are highly subsidized. The amount of subsidy on this has grown exponentially during the last three decades from a mere Rs. 60 crore during 1976-77 to an astronomical Rs. 40,338 crore during 2007-08. In 2008-09, it shot up to Rs 96,606 crores. The budget allocation for 2009-10 for fertilizer subsidies was Rs 349,980 crores and is having similar estimate for 2010-11 . This huge rise in subsidy is attributed to inflation, and subsequent price fluctuations in the international fertilizer market. On a real term basis also, the fertilizer subsidy allocation has been showing a rising trend. Huge amount of subsidy allocation provided directly to the industry has led to indiscriminate production and availability while neglecting the locally available knowledge on soil nutrient management. Widespread usage of such fertilizers has resulted in the degradation of natural resource base, especially soil. It is now threatening the food security of the country and has sparked of a debate.

Access to Land: Some Issues

Srijit Mishra — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:51:39 PST

The paper, or rather note, is a brief review of some existing literature. It underscores the need for improved land access to the tiller from the point of view of both equity and efficiency. Some of the suggestions are: (i) opening up of the land lease market so that tenancy does not go underground (ii) in states like West Bengal where tenancy is protected, provision could be made to make them owners in part of the land while giving up claims for the rest, (iii) reduce transaction costs in land markets, which include fees but also bribes being paid, (iv) as there is a lot of vested interest in land, efforts should be made to make the transfers transparent, (v) moratorium on ceiling distribution land could be removed after a lag to enable people who have moved out of agriculture to sell the same, (vi) buying of land by the Government at market rates for distribution among the landless, and (vii) ownership rights for women members of households, (viii) while distributing homestead plots, provisions could be made for kitchen gardens to enable some livelihood options, and (ix) build people’s institutions and strengthen civil society to provide some checks and balances.

Course Outline, Contemporary Issues in Human Development and Policy

Srijit Mishra — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:55:56 PST

This is the course outline for 'Contemporary Issues in Human Development and Policy: A New Millennium Perspective' January-May 2012, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai.

Synthesis of Village studies

Srijit Mishra — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:09:13 PST

The Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), New Delhi with the support from the Planning Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and The World Bank conducted a two day workshop on 'Policy Options and Investment Priorities for Accelerating Agricultural Productivity and Development in India' at the India International Centre, New Delhi during 10-11 November 2011. Three papers were on village studies, viz., (a) Structural Change in Rural Bihar: Preliminary Results from a Longitudinal Study by Gerry Rodgers and Alakh N Sharma, (b) Returns from Crop Cultivation and Scale of Production: Evidence from Village Studies in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh by Vikas Rawal and Madhura Swaminathan, and (c) Change and Continuity: Some aspects of Agriculture in Palanpur by Himanshu. The three studies are important contributions in our understanding of "the changing technological and market scenario as also socio-economic intervention in bringing about a lot of changes in rural India". This synthesis paper summarize the three papers.

Policy Brief: Options and Priorities for Agriculture in India on the Eve of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan

Srijit Mishra — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:59:09 PST

This is a policy brief based on a two day workshop organized by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai in collaboration with the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi and with the support of the Planning Commission, Government of India, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank. The purpose of this brief is to provide some suggestions to the Planning Commission that would help in the twelfth five-year plan.

Consultation Report on Strengthening the Role of Agriculture for a Nutrition Secure India

Srijit Mishra — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:46:54 PST

This is a consultation report for a one-day workshop on ‘Strengthening the Role of Agriculture for Nutrition Secure India’ organized by the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi at New Delhi.

To Bt or Not to Bt? Risk and Uncertainty Considerations in Technology Assessment

Sarthak Gaurav et al. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:17:54 PST

The acreage under the transgenic Bt cotton seeds in India has risen significantly since its legalization in the year 2002. Discussions on the advantages from the technology have focused on increments in productivity and income, without much analysis on risk. We point out that claims on productivity gains seem to be misplaced, as appropriate counterfactuals do not exist for the same hybrids. In this article we analyse production costs and crop incomes in drought years to test a simplistic theory of risk based on first principles. We employ a mixed-methods framework to draw inferences by combining data from two cross-sectional surveys in Gujarat (Saurashtra and Southern-Plains) and Maharashtra (Western Vidarbha) for the period 2009-10 and compare it with unit-level data for the corresponding regions from a nationally representative sample for the period 2002-03. Empirical evidence, though limited, brings out the problem of how a high cost technology could be associated with higher risks and may be dominated by traditional alternatives under certain conditions. Ethnographic accounts from the field provide qualitative support to our understanding of potential risks and uncertainties associated with the new technology.

Size-class and Returns to Cultivation in India: A Cold Case Reopened

Sarthak Gaurav et al. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:13:49 PST

This paper investigates the relationship between returns to cultivation per hectare and size-class of land cultivated in India, using unit level data from the 59th round National Sample Survey, 2003. The analysis is done separately for ‘kharif’ and ‘rabi’ - for total value of cultivation from all crops at the all India level. The empirical evidence rejects the null hypothesis of no relationship and points to the existence of an inverse association. We argue that the efficiency of the small-holders has to be taken with a pinch of salt because their low absolute returns brings into focus the question of their livelihood sustainability which is further aggravated on account of higher unit costs. Being the first exercise in a series of proposed explorations into disaggregated analyses across states, and for specific crops, it opens up the classic debate on farm size and productivity in the 21st century.

Poverty Estimates in India: Old and New Methods, 2004-05

Srijit Mishra et al. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:08:50 PST

This paper provides estimates of poverty and inequality across states as also for different sub-groups of population for 2004-05 by using the old and new methods of the Planning Commission. The new method is critically evaluated with the help of some existing literature and its limitations discussed with regard to doing away with calorie norm, use of median expenditure as a norm for education when the distribution is positively skewed, difficulty in reproducing results for earlier rounds acting as a constraint on comparisons, and using urban poverty ration of the old method as a starting point to decide a consumption basket. More importantly, it discusses the implications on financial transfers across states if the share of poor is only taken into account without accounting for an increase in the total number of poor. Despite these limitations, on grounds of parsimony and prudence the state-specific poverty lines suggested in the new method, as also in the old method, are used to calculate incidence, depth (intensity) and severity (inequality among poor) estimates of poverty for different sub-groups of population, viz., NSS regions, social groups and occupation groups.

Hunger, Ethics and The Right to Food

Srijit Mishra — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:01:09 PST

he management of hunger has to look into the issues of availability, accessibility and adequacy of food supply. From an ethical perspective, this paper argues in favour of the right to food. But, for this to become viable, the state has to come up with an appropriate and effective bill on food and nutrition security, address the issue of inadequate provisioning of storage space by state agencies leading to rotting of food grains - a criminal waste when people are dying of hunger; and rely on local level institutions involving the community, that complement the administrative structure to identify the poor and reduce exclusion and inclusion errors.

Editorial: Contemporary Issues in Global Economy and Policy Analysis

Sushanta Mallick et al. — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:21:26 PST

Open Book Test 1

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:22:43 PST

This is the first test. It is open book and discussions are allowed. Send your responses by evening.

Group differential measures

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:24:05 PDT

This lecture about group differential is based on ongoing research that proposes measure to capture the fact that same gap at a higher level of attainment or lower level of failure should be considered as worse off.

Multidimensional Poverty

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 13:20:43 PDT

This lecture is based on the paper by Alkire and Foster, OPHI WP No.32 and the example is based on discussion generated within the classroom.

Measuring Literacy: Promimate and Secluded Illiterates

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:41:40 PDT

This paper discussed proximate and secluded illiteracy, a concept introduced by Basu and Foster. It critically evaluates it and also discusses triplot, a graphical method to pictographically shown three dimensions in a two dimension plot.

HDI: The Old, the New and the Elegant

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:37:51 PDT

This lecture critically discusses the HDI measure, the old measure of linear averaging (arithmetic mean), the new measure of geometric mean and a proposed new measure which is the inverse of the shortfall of the Euclidean distance from the ideal.

Nussbaum on Sen

Srijit Mishra — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:34:24 PDT

This lecture is based on Nussbaum's paper Capabilities as Fundamental Entitlements: Sen and Social Justice, Feminist Economics, 9 (2-3), 2003, 33-59.

Some Questions: Understanding Rawls

Srijit Mishra — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 04:43:14 PST

There are a few questions which give three different possibilities (libertarian, utilitarian, egalitarian) as Sen puts it but they also represent Rawls' equality of liberty (first principle), choosing the capable (first part of second principle) and providing for the most disadvantaged (second part of second principle).

Rawls on Justice

Srijit Mishra — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:07:37 PST

These are based on Rawls' Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

Agrarian Crisis in Post-reform India

Srijit Mishra — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 07:56:44 PST

In recent years, the Indian economy is growing at about nine per cent per annum. This impressive growth is largely a story of the urban-based service sector and to a lesser extent for industry but in both these sectors the employment growth is not commensurate.Today, agriculture accounts for less than one-fourth of the gross domestic produce but employs nearly three-fifths of the total work force.Within agriculture, the incremental value addition in output indicates a shift away from traditional crops to high value crops like fruits & vegetables that hardly have any presence under the gross cropped area. Overall, income from cultivation is inadequate. It becomes difficult for the farmer to plan for all possible risks: vagaries of nature (primarily, inadequate or excessive water), market related uncertainties such as increasing input costs and output price shocks, unavailability of credit from institutional sources or excessive reliance on informal sources with a greater interest burden and new technology among others.With the decline in extension service he has to rely on the input dealer leading to supplier-induced-demand.This has adverse implications on the livelihoods of the cultivators, most of whom are marginal and small farmers, as well as for agricultural labourers. This is indicative of a larger agrarian crisis. Response to the crisis would be different among different sub-groups and vary across different regions. One of the extreme forms of reaction is reflected through the increasing incidence of farmers’ suicides. If the state of farmers is critical then that of the agricultural labourers would be worse off.