Record Details

Annual Report

KRISHI: Publication and Data Inventory Repository

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Annual Report
Not Available
 
Creator Director
 
Subject Not Available
 
Description Not Available
The National Centre for Agricultural
Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) is
making persistent efforts to sustain excellence
in agricultural economics and policy research
in the country. The Centre serves as a policy
think tank and helps the ICAR through
credible research to actively participate in
policy debates and decisions and in monitoring
and interpreting the research impacts at
various levels. The Centre sensitizes policy
planners in the country and ICAR about the
emerging changes and concerns related to
agriculture and farmers. Besides helping ICAR,
the Centre also provides policy inputs to
several other public sector organisations,
Departments, Ministries and various state
governments.
The staff of the Centre included 20
scientists, 18 other staff members and the
research project staff in the year 2012-13. The
total expenditure of the Centre, including
externally funded projects, during the year was
Rs 673 lakh.
A Research Advisory Committee, chaired
by Prof. V S Vyas, distinguished economist and
Member, Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory
Council, guides the Centre in its research
programmes, and a Management Committee
guides its overall functioning. Besides, a
number of committees (mandated by ICAR and
internal) facilitate decentralised management
of the Centre.
Research is conducted at the Centre under
five broad themes, viz. technology policy,
sustainable agricultural systems, markets and
trade, institutional change and agricultural
growth and modelling. During the year 2012-
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
13, the Centre undertook 14 research projects
and completed five consultancy research
studies. It has not only maintained but also
increased the linkages and collaborations with
many institutions in India and abroad. Besides,
it organised a number of workshops, trainings,
brainstorming sessions and policy discussions.
A brief account of research and other activities
undertaken by the Centre during 2012-13 is
given below.
● The study on research priority setting
compared existing and normative
allocation of agricultural research resources
across major states of the country and
suggested increase in share of Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan,
Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh
and Jharkhand. The proposed reallocation
of resources shows large reduction in
shares of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu,
Punjab, Haryana, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh,
Gujarat, Karnataka, Assam, and all hill
states to varying degree. Interestingly, the
states which gain in proposed allocation
except West Bengal are in the development
stage of agriculture.
● In a study on district-wise agricultural
productivity, striking variations were
observed across districts. Barmer remained
the lowest productive district in TE 2007
with Rs. 2068/ha and Karnal recorded the
highest productivity of Rs. 107376/ha. The
role of modern inputs, viz. improved seed,
fertilizer, pesticides and mechanization,
in fostering growth in agricultural
productivity was clearly visible in the
study.
xvi
● Another study concluded that agricultural
R&D for less-developed countries is at
crossroads. The technology gap between
the developed and the developing
countries is increasing, both quantitatively
as well as qualitatively. If the current R&D
dichotomies continue, it may dispatch
agriculture in many developing countries
to technological orphanage.
● Another study examined the varietal
diversity and identified dominant varieties
of chickpea in Madhya Pradesh. It was
found that 63.22 per cent of the net sown
area was under chickpea, out of which onethird
area was under Kabuli type chickpea
and two-third of chickpea area was under
non-Kabuli. Lack of availability of seeds of
modern varieties is one of the main
constraints to their adoption.
● Use of appropriate information and inputs
at required time has brought more efficient
ways of production and sale of produce.
To harness the full potential of mobile and
to pave the way for m-agriculture (Mobile
based agriculture), awareness cum training
programs need to be organized to
encourage farmers in accessing information
on weather and agricultural technologies.
Mobile applications in agriculture using
local languages will be highly beneficial.
● Comparative cost-return structure of baby
corn with respect to other crops revealed
that baby corn cultivation can improve the
livelihood security of the farm families to
a great extent by providing net returns of
Rs 68,725/acre. Reduction in marketing
margin and increase in share of farmers in
consumer price has the scope to raise
profitability of baby corn manifolds.
● Another study indicated positive
relationship between access of farm women
to information and communication
technologies (ICTs) and farm size. ICTs had
helped farm women in selling their farm
produce, especially vegetables, at
competitive market rates and facilitated
adoption of improved technologies for
vegetables production. The important
drivers identified affecting farm women’s
access to ICTs are: education, income,
structure of the family and caste.
● Kerala’s economy is transforming from an
agrarian one to a heavily service oriented
one. The level of self-sufficiency of the state
on its staple food, rice was found to be just
17 per cent, and that on pulses was less
than 1 per cent. The future projections on
supply-demand balance of most of the food
commodities indicate further aggravation
of the already well articulated concern of
Kerala touching the worst levels of food
self-sufficiency, if existing trends continue
for long.
● IPM is effectively used in about 3-5% of
net sown area and bio-pesticides account
for only 2.89% of the pesticides sales in
the country. Greater integration of research,
education, extension and programs
(policies) for IPM is emphasized.
● Plant protection and seed replacement rates
were identified as the major constraints to
increasing pulse production. The major
research activity is to develop and test
pulse varieties suitable for different agroecosystems
in the country.
● Trends in the monthly temperature in
different agro-ecologies of India were
assessed for the period 1901-2002. In
general, it emerged that Indian winters are
becoming hotter. There was a statistically
significant rise (1
C to 1.5
C) in the
temperature in most of the months during
October-April.
● The drought index was constructed for
each district (1970 base districts) for the
kharif season. During the 1970s and 1980s
xvii
droughts were less frequent but were more
widespread. These, however, became more
frequent during the 1990s and 2000s, but
less widespread.
● Panel data on area and production of 19
major crops for 200 districts (at 1970 base)
for the period 1969-2005 were used to
assess the impact of climate change on
agricultural productivity. At all-India level,
1 degree rise in temperature could cause a
reduction in agricultural productivity by
12-13 per cent until the early 1990s. The
effect, however, became stronger (15.5%)
afterwards.
● Technology adoption and improvement in
efficiency in production are important
strategies to raise agricultural production
and to improve food and nutritional
security. Large variations in the efficiency
were found across agro-ecologies. The
highest technical efficiency was observed
in case of hill and mountainous region and
the lowest in the case of rainfed region.
The findings of the study revealed
significant positive role of education,
infrastructure and durable capital assets in
improving the technical efficiency.
● SAARC countries have moved further to
liberalize trade and investment in the
region and they have signed “South Asia
Free Trade Agreement” in January 2004.
The major factor for low volume and low
share of intra-regional trade seems to be
the poor trade facilitation for intra-regional
trade, like efficiency of custom, other
border procedures, quality of transport and
IT infrastructure etc. Liberal and conducive
environment for FDIs in the area of food
chain development and food processing
and more liberal trade will not only raise
intra-regional trade but also help in
addressing food deficit in SAARC
countries.
● The Karnataka State Agricultural Marketing
Board has started disseminating agricultural
prices to the farming community through
free mobile SMS, which has made farmers
save marketing time and reduced cost of
search of information.
● The super markets are adopting direct
marketing models with backward linkages
saving farmers from market cost, other
charges and complete elimination of
middlemen. Farmers supplying to super
markets have advantages getting technical
guidance, market information on prices,
perfect weights, spot payments etc.
● The relationship between poverty and
livestock income showed that the head
count poverty is negatively and
significantly associated with income from
livestock as well as crops. The marginal
effect of livestock on poverty reduction is
-0.36 against -0.25 for crops, implying that
growth in the livestock sector has a larger
impact on poverty reduction.
● The productivity of meat animals such as
sheep, goats and pigs in India is
substantially less compared to world
averages. There was a sharp deceleration
in the yield growth of dairy animals. The
growth in milk yield of crossbred cows
decelerated from 1.8% during the 1990s to
0.7% during the 2000s and of buffaloes
from 1.7% to 1.2%. The productivity of
meat animals (sheep, goats and pigs) has
remained stagnant for quite long.
● The role of PDS in meeting the consumption
requirement of households has increased
over time. In general, the penetration of PDS
has increased in almost all states of country
over time and the share of PDS grain in
household food consumption has increased.
The findings suggest that the PDS has
proved to be one of the most effective
instruments of government policy over the
xviii
years in stabilizing of foodgrain prices and
making their availability to consumers at
affordable price.
● Another study estimated the risk involved
in production of various crops at
disaggregate and aggregate level.
Agricultural insurance schemes launched
in the country have served the farmers in
a limited way only. Valued-added services
like weather forecasts, agro-advisories
could be bundled with crop insurance, for
popularizing crop insurance and concrete
action is required from the government, in
terms of a suitable law, like ‘agriculture
risk protection act’, etc.
● Growth rate of agriculture has improved
considerably after 2004-05. Growth rate in
Net State Domestic Product (NSDP)-
Agriculture in six out of 20 major states
was higher than the national target. These
states are Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh,
Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and
Jharkhand. One fifth states are close to the
national target of 4% growth rate in
agriculture. States of Kerala, UP,
Uttarakhand and J&K achieved less than 2
per cent growth in agriculture sector
during 2001 to 2011.
● Estimates of undernutrition (calorie
deficiency) and malnutrition (protein
deficiency) were prepared for various
income groups using unit-level NSSO data.
The average intake levels of poor
households were at levels even lower than
the FAO norm of 1800 Kcal. Calorie
deficiency was higher for rural areas than
urban areas. More than half of the income
poor population was found to be calorie
deficient in both rural and urban areas
across all the choices of norms. Incidence
of undernutrition and malnutrition was
much higher based on ICMR-NIN norm.
It was also observed that the percentage of
population with inadequate protein intakes
was higher in urban households as compared
to their rural counterparts.
● The patterns of calorie as well as protein
intake do not depict a clear trend for both
rural and urban households. Between 1983
to 2009-10, the calorie and protein
consumption has declined in the rural areas
and increased in the urban areas. The
consumption of fat consistently increased
overtime both in rural and urban areas.
● Technology had been the main source
of agricultural growth in the 1980s.
Diversification (from lower-value to highervalue
crops) was the second largest source
of growth (26%); followed by area
expansion (17%). Later, there was also a
sharp increase in the contribution of prices
to growth mainly because of terms of trade
in favor of agriculture. Diversification, on
the other hand, consolidated its share in
agriculture growth. There was also a sharp
increase in the contribution of prices to
growth mainly because of terms of trade
in favor of agriculture. In the 2000s, the
contribution of prices declined drastically
suggesting that price-led growth cannot
sustain in the long-run.
● The centre organized two one-week
training programme on ‘core issues in the
agricultural sector’ for the officers of the
Indian Economic Service’ funded by the
Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
The centre also conducted a training
programme on Field Survey, Electronic
Compilation and Analysis of Data for the
field staff of ICAR-ICRISAT project on
Tracking Change in Rural Poverty in
Household and Village Economies in South
Asia. Besides, the Centre conducted several
theme/project-wise trainings, interaction
meetings, workshops, etc. which helped in
capacity building of the project partners.
xix
● As part of the dissemination of research
output, the Centre published one policy
paper during the year under report. The
staff of the Centre published 20 research
papers in leading journals of national and
international repute and contributed 11
book chapters/ popular articles. More than
15 presentations were made in national and
international conferences. The scientists of
the Centre were involved in a number of
professional and policy interactions
and projects. The website of NCAP
(www.ncap.res.in) was regularly updated
and all the publications of the Centre were
uploaded on the website.
● Faculty of the Centre participated in
several policy debates and discourses
and also undertook research based
policy advocacy. NCAP faculty has
played a leading role in creating proper
understanding and awareness among
public on various agricultural issues
through participation in T.V. debates and
newspaper reporting. Director NCAP
has been a resource person for SAARC,
G-20 and couple of other international
bodies besides responding to needs of
Department of Agriculture and Cooperation
(DAC), Ministry of Finance and Ministry
of Commerce.
Not Available
 
Date 2016-12-01T06:49:38Z
2016-12-01T06:49:38Z
2013-07-01
 
Type Annual Report
 
Identifier Not Available
Not Available
http://krishi.icar.gov.in/jspui/handle/123456789/753
 
Language English
 
Relation 2012-13;
 
Publisher Not Available