Record Details

ICAR-NIAP Annual Report 2004-05

KRISHI: Publication and Data Inventory Repository

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title ICAR-NIAP Annual Report 2004-05
Not Available
 
Creator Director, NIAP, New Delhi
 
Subject Not Available
 
Description Not Available
National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) was established in 1991
by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research to strengthen policy research in agriculture. The
mandate of NCAP includes; conducting policy research, strengthening research and teaching in
agricultural economics and enhancing ICAR participation in policy dialogue and decision. The
Centre has 17 scientists, including one National Professor, one National Fellow and one Principal
Scientist on deputation to IFPRI, Washington D.C., USA. The total grant received by NCAP
during the year was Rs. 307.75 lakh from ICAR and Rs. 73.91 lakh from other sources. The total
expenditure during the year was Rs. 381.66 lakh.
• The Centre is guided by a Research Advisory Committee (RAC), chaired by an eminent
agricultural economist, Prof. V. Rajagopalan. The members are: Dr G. K. Chadha (VC, JNU),
Prof. Abhijit Sen (Member, Planning Commission, GOI), Dr. G. S. Ram (Former Chief Economic
Advisor, Ministry of Labour, GOI), Dr. I. J. Singh (Former Dean, CCSHAU, Hisar), Dr. D. K.
Marothia (Professor and Head, Department of Agricultural Economics, IGKVV, Raipur), Dr. J.
P. Mishra (ADG, ICAR) and Dr. Mruthyunjaya (Director, NCAP). Two representatives from
the farming community, Shri D.S. Ananth, and Prof. Ram Pravesh Singh, are the other members
of RAC.
• The functioning of the Centre is supervised by a Management Committee (MC) which is
constituted and mandated by ICAR under the chairmanship of the Director. A number of other
internal committees facilitate decentralized management of the Centre s activities.
• The Centre continued its efforts towards achieving excellence in the area of agricultural economics
and policy research. The research achievements of the Centre are described under five themes:
Technology Policy, Sustainable Agricultural Systems, Markets and Trade, Institutional Change,
and Agricultural Growth and Modeling.
• There were 25 ongoing projects in the Centre in the year 2004-05. The Centre undertook seven
consultancy projects during the year. The Centre has maintained and increased linkages with many
institutions in India and abroad. The Centre has organized several workshops, trainings and
seminars covering topical areas such as Bio-informatics, assessing costs and commercial worth of
agricultural technologies, quantitative methodologies for agricultural policy research, rural
innovations etc.
Technology policy research covered agricultural R&D, seed sector, intellectual property rights,
resource use efficiency, agricultural diversification and food security issues.
• There has been an increasing trend for privatization of Indian seed industry. A significant
proportion of farmers irrespective of farm size purchase seeds from commercial sources for quality
consideration. There have also been increasing instances of partnerships and contractual
arrangements between the seed agencies and research institutions.
• Considering the low labour absorption capacity of the farm economy, generation of gainful
employment in non-farm sector in the rural areas is essential for poverty alleviation. Development
of livestock, horticulture and fishery sectors and emphasis on agro-processing would generate
Executive Summary
Annual Report, 2004-2005
ix
NCAP Annual Report 2004-2005
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY RESEARCH
x
employment opportunities in rural areas through direct absorption of labour as well as
strengthening of non-farm sector by fostering backward and forward linkages. Besides, concerted
efforts should be made to equip and empower rural poor, particularly women, by upgrading their
skills, and providing access to credit and technologies.
• The Indian agricultural R&D is still dominated by public organizations, but private R&D is now
expanding rapidly. The analysis of public-private partnership in agricultural R&D advocated that
collaboration between public-private institutions could complement each other s role. Both the
sectors should develop mutual trust and confidence and learn from the experience. In particular,
the public sector should take lead in transfer of technologies, and wherever necessary provide
capacity building at the grass root level for technology adaptation.
• An analysis of resource allocation for agricultural research in National Agricultural Research
System (NARS) revealed that about 95 percent of the scientists are in the public sector. Out of
this, SAUs account for more than 56 percent. It was also observed that ICAR scientists are more
research focused as compared to those in other institutions. Further, agricultural research in the
country is dominated by crop sector. However, over the last decade or so the ICAR has been
placing more emphasis on livestock and fisheries research. The private sector relatively paid less
attention to livestock and fisheries research. A normative allocation profile by incorporating
criteria like efficiency, equity, sustainability, trade and value addition suggests marginal
readjustments where to add incremental resources and where to consolidate. This exercise would
be helpful in improving the information base for decision making process.
• A study of Indian oilseeds sector revealed the existence of technical inefficiencies in oilseed
production to the tune of 25 to 40 percent. At the processing unit level, the inefficiencies were
observed on an average at about 20 to 30 percent. Providing quality seeds in time, improving
farmer's education and adoption of technical know-how need due attention to raise technical
efficiencies in oilseeds production. For improving efficiencies at processing level, efforts should
be made to improve machines for oilseeds crushing and regular supply of raw materials through
institutional/contractual arrangements.
• The technological interventions and crop diversification in tribal, backward and hilly areas
improved consumption of food items and bridged the consumption gap with respect to
recommended dietary allowances (RDA). It also helped in augmenting income and generating
employment.
• Livestock production is gradually getting intensified in India. The intensification would create
opportunities for producers especially smallholders to enhance their income, however, in urban
areas it would cause some adverse implications in terms of environmental pollution and
deterioration in civic amenities. The current productivity of Indian livestock is low, suggesting
considerable scope for productivity-led intensification with less stress on natural resources.
Therefore, future growth in livestock production must come from productivity increases rather
through increase in numbers.
• High value agriculture is likely to emerge as an important source of agricultural growth and it is
expected to be more equitable as the smallholders have a greater tendency to diversify.
Nevertheless, high value agriculture may come under stress for want of adequate technology,
infrastructure and policy support. High value agriculture has greater production and market risks,
and there is clearly a need to provide a cushion to producers against these risks. Mitigating
NCAP Annual Report 2004-2005
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY RESEARCH
xi
production risks would require improved technologies, quality inputs, insurance mechanisms and
increasing participation of financial institutions, which hitherto have a thin spread and are not
easily accessible to producers especially the smallholders.
• The study on technical efficiency in shrimp farming and freshwater aquaculture suggested that
there was considerable scope to raise shrimp/fish production at existing level of input use and
technology. Nevertheless, there were considerable differences in technical efficiency across farms.
Large differences in productivity and efficiency across farms as well as states call for exchange of
expertise and experience to improve and strengthen the aquaculture activity. The study suggested
for evolving support system for small farmers, making leasing policy tenant friendly and developing
appropriate and comprehensive extension and research strategies.
• The contribution made by technological change in the development of fisheries sector in India
was found to be substantial and it had considerable impact on the social welfare of both producers
as well as consumers. The internal rate of return to investment in fisheries research and
development would be in the range of 42 to 55 per cent under different TFP scenarios.
Sustainable Agricultural Systems research gave thrust on impact of zero-tillage technology, IPM,
spatial and temporal variations in agricultural productivity impacts, sustainability status and
dimensions of agro-ecological regions.
• Adoption of zero-tillage technology in wheat has been found to be economically as well as
environmentally beneficial in Indo-Gangetic Plain areas of Punjab, Haryana, Uttaranchal, Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar. Reduced cost of land preparation and less use of groundwater would save 33
litres of diesel per hectare, which if translated in terms of reduced CO2 emission will be equivalent
to 88 kg per hectare. Thus, expected spread of zero-tillage technology to 3 million hectares by
2010 would bring in substantial economic as well as environmental benefits in the region.
• Economic benefits of integrated pest management (IPM) covering cabbage, tomato, pigeon pea,
cotton, groundnut and chickpea have been quantified. The adoption of IPM technology could
save the operational cost by Rs. 259 per hectare and increase the crop yield by 267 kg per hectare.
Net incremental benefit due to IPM has been estimated at Rs. 4272 per hectare.
• The agricultural R&D in India over the past decades has boosted the productivity levels of several
crops across districts. However, the states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa have been found
lagging behind in the rice productivity growth. Even in the case of advanced states like Tamil
Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab, the efficiency differential ranges from 2.5 to 4.3. Such efficiency
gaps existing at farm level even in advanced states point towards the potential for targeting
productivity growth with efficiency.
• Sustainable agricultural development has to balance the future production growth in diverse agro
ecological regions without degrading the natural resource base. The analysis of sustainable
livelihood security indices revealed that out of 52 agro-ecological sub-regions (AESRs), 10 AESRs
have shown declining status of sustainability and 11 AESRs have improved their sustainability
levels while the rest have maintained status quo during the 1990s.
Market and trade studies focused on reforms in agricultural markets, institutions, WTO related
issues, trade liberalization impacts and food safety measures.
• An evaluation of functioning of agricultural markets showed that markets for large number of
commodities are competitive in the segment where agro-commercial firms are involved in
NCAP Annual Report 2004-2005
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY RESEARCH
xii
transactions with other agro-commercial firms. Markets are less competitive where business firms
are dealing with consumers and producers. This is reflected in collusive behaviour of the buyers
and imperfections at retail level. In order to provide more competition at retail level and to benefit
consumers and producers, innovative marketing mechanisms like Apni Mandi and Producers Sale
Counters in consumer centers should be promoted.
• Growth in fisheries export was significantly affected by degree of competitiveness, level of global
export of fisheries, and trade liberalization. World demand for fisheries exports contributed about
71 percent growth in fisheries exports from India. The trade liberalization emerged as the second
most important determinant and boosted growth in fisheries export by about 24 per cent. Export
of fisheries from India in future would be largely determined by the consistent compliance with
food safety measures. Steps should be taken to devise appropriate institutional mechanisms to
bring scattered small producers and processors under a network so that they can effectively
participate in the emerging processing procedure to reap the benefits of expanding global fish
trade.
• The reforms in major areas of agriculture marketing at country level need to be in tune with
requirement of WTO. Some marketing institutions have initiated reforms and are moving towards
commercialization using information technologies. The process of reforms in these marketing
institutions, however, is slow and limited in coverage. Therefore, the reform canvas has to be
widened and pace has to be accelerated.
The studies under institutional change touched upon the issues of agricultural research, food
security and agricultural biotechnology, ICT based initiatives in public, private and NGOs,
extension policies and success & failures of community organizations.
• Evaluation of ICT-based initiatives revealed subtle differences in implementing ICTs projects
among public and private sector institutions and NGOs. Each initiative is a unique model in the
application of ICTs to agriculture and has merits and constraints of its own.
• Some private companies initiated one-stop farm solution centers in different parts of the country.
An evaluation of this initiative concluded that private extension intiatives were both a useful and
viable alternative to public services for medium and large scale farmers but discriminated against
the poor.
• The analysis of national extension policy in selected Asian countries revealed that the existing
culture of extension organizations might prevent the emergence of learning based approaches to
reinvent extension. Changing these cultures are yet the biggest challenge to reinvent extension in
Asia.
Under the area of agricultural growth and modeling studies were focused on agricultural growth
during the reforms, capital formation, contract farming.
• The growth rate analysis showed that initial years of reforms were somewhat favourable for
agricultural growth but post WTO period witnessed sharp decline in growth rate of almost all
commodity groups. The current growth rates are too low to achieve the goal of 4 percent growth
in output as envisaged in the national agricultural policy.
• AgGDP is affected by both capital formation as well as subsidies, besides terms of trade. Instant
return to one rupee spent in subsidy is much higher than that in the public sector capital formation.
NCAP Annual Report 2004-2005
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS AND POLICY RESEARCH
xiii
However, long term return from capital formation is more than double the return from subsidies.
Diverting one per cent resources from subsidies to public investment raises output by more than
two percent. Therefore, diverting resources from subsidies to public sector capital formation is
highly desirable to ensure growth of AgGDP.
• Analysis of contract farming in poultry in India showed that contract production was more
efficient than production by independent growers and contract growers gain substantially even
though their returns are not much different from what is received by independent growers. The
study suggested that contract farming was a useful institutional arrangement for the supply of
credit, insurance and technology to farmers.
• The website for NCAP, http://www.ncap.res.in has been redesigned and updated. It has
linkages with two NATP-Mission Mode Projects namely, PME and INARIS. The Centre s
publications are now available in downloadable PDF file. The website for Networking of Social
Scientists, http://www.agrieconet.nic.in earlier created by this Centre is facilitating research
information exchange, resource sharing and optimization of the response time for addressing
methodology related problems.
• The ARIS at the center is equipped with 128 KBPS Leased Line from ERNET to cater to the email
and Internet requirement of the researchers and the administration. To utilize the full
potential of ERNET, the Centre has now got its independent mail server configured.
• The Centre has brought out one Policy Brief, one Workshop Proceedings, and a PME Note during
the year under report. Twenty research papers have been published in reputed journals by the
scientists. A considerable number of papers have also been presented by the scientists of the Centre
in different national and international workshops, seminars, conferences etc.
• The Centre had several distinguished visitors from the USA, the UK, SAARC countries,
Netherlands, Australia, Japan etc., besides many dignitaries from government, public, private,
and non-governmental organizations in India.
Not Available
 
Date 2016-12-01T06:52:13Z
2016-12-01T06:52:13Z
2005-09-01
 
Type Annual Report
 
Identifier Not Available
Not Available
http://krishi.icar.gov.in/jspui/handle/123456789/761
 
Language English
 
Relation 2004-05;
 
Publisher ICAR-NCAP, New Delhi