As the policies on better water management work themselves out and the larger sums of monies the UPA government is spending on them have an effect, technology is the major source of growth in Indian agriculture. Improved seeds matter. While the earlier seed suppliers in agricultural universities and seed corporations reorganise themselves with the support of the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, private and public private partnerships (PPP) are flourishing. Bt...

The fertiliser sector in India has been through difficult times in recent years. Stagnant production, no fresh investment and poor financial health of the units were accompanied by high level of import, imbalanced use of nutrients and deteriorating soil health. Mounting subsidy bill posed a serious fiscal management problem to the government. Industry has been pursuing with the government for appropriate reforms to ensure health and growth for both the...

Gujarat's business acumen and entrepreneurial zest is passé; the State's leap-frogging with 11 per cent agricultural growth, praised by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) last year, is old hat too. What is new is this: Gujarat may now export more ‘kesar', the famous mango variety of the State, to West Asia than Maharashtra sells alphonso; the State has entered Goa market with cashew nut; and an Ahmedabad-based part-time...

“If one goes through the agricultural production history in the last six decades, the number of farmers opting out of agriculture, suicides of hundreds of farmers in the past 10 years, and shrinking cultivation lands are ample proof that our agriculture policy is totally wrong,” says Mr. R. Kulandaisamy a progressive farmer and liquid bio-fertilizer producer called Tari Biotech in Thanjavur. “Though policy makers and certain sections of the scientific fraternity...

Population growth seems to have dropped off the public agenda these days. One reason for this is a twist in the old Malthusian argument that sees the rising proportion of persons of working age as a positive for growth. This shift in the age-distribution, it is argued, will stimulate savings as pressure on household and public budgets for the needs of dependent children comes down. Young workers are assumed to...