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AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS

Impact of vegetable production onincome and employment of small farms

The impact of diversification of agriculturetowards vegetables was assessed on farm incomeand employment using household level informationfrom the western Uttar Pradesh. The results clearlyrevealed that vegetable production is moreprofitable and labour-intensive as compared tocereals and it fits well in the small farm productionsystems. The small farms are relatively moreefficient in production and own more family labourin contrast to large farms. Women are also benefitedas the vegetable production engages relativelyhigher women labour in various operations.

Labour use in vegetable production(man days/ha)

Vegetable production is an important sourceof income for small farms. It accounts for 66%share in the value of crops output. Amongvegetables, potato, cauliflower and tomato

contribute 57% to the total farm income. Largefarmers also gain much from vegetable cultivation.With nearly 28% of the area under vegetablecultivation, they realize about 46% in terms ofvalue. Potato, cabbage and tomato account forabout 66% of the total value of vegetableproduction in the production portfolio of largefarmers.

Linking smallholders to markets forhigh-value crops: Role of farmers’organizations

Institutions such as farmers’ cooperatives,producers’ associations and contract farming areconsidered efficient means of linking smallholdersto markets. Integration of vegetable producers withvillage level associations of fruit and vegetablegrowers has been examined along with costs andprofits of the producers.

The impact of association on farmer memberswas studied through a survey conducted in Haryana.Study revealed that transaction costs are higherin wet markets and the institution-linked sales

12. Agricultural Economics, Marketing andStatistics

Net return from vegetables and cereals production Labour use in vegetable production (man days)

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reduce these costs by 92%. The smallholdersbenefited most from this arrangement despitehaving low marketed surplus and higher transactioncosts. Price realization was also higher ininstitution-linked sales; this shows producers’collective bargaining power and no extraction ofmonopsonisic rent in the output market. Post-stratification of sample vegetable producers consist50% members of small holding size indicatinglarge involvement of smallholders in growers’associations.

Sources of agricultural growth inIndia

The sources of agricultural growth in India havebeen decomposed during pre-reform (decade of1980s) and reform (decade of 1990s) periods. Aclear trend has emerged at the national level that

during the pre-reform period technology (cropyields as proxy) dominated the different sourcesof growth, and output prices became the importantsources of growth in agriculture during the reformperiod. Share of agricultural diversification towardsfruits and vegetables has consistently increasedin agricultural growth during the past two decades,with much faster rate during the reform period.Some important policy implications have emergedfrom this study.

First, the contribution of technology to futureagricultural growth should be viewed seriously.The present agricultural scenario and currentstagnated or decelerated growth of majorcommodities are due to various ailments. It maybe recognized that contribution of technology mustbe stepped-up for sustaining agricultural growthand meeting the global challenges. This wouldrequire (i) higher efficiency of investment onagricultural R&D, (ii) matching R&D agenda,keeping in view the ever changing and emergingchallenges in different regions, and (iii)strengthening of public-private partnership inresearch, extension and input-delivery system.Higher allocation of research resources would benecessary for developing technologies to enhanceyield potential of all commodities. Additionalresearch resources would also be required topromote agricultural diversification in the non-traditional areas. New high-value crops in non-traditional areas would require greater researchon production, marketing and processing to sustaintheir technical feasibility and economic viability.

Second, the contribution of agriculturaldiversification to agricultural growth must beviewed as an opportunity in the rainfed areas,which were by-passed during the ‘green revolution’

Sources of agricultural growth

Production costs, transaction costs and net returnsfrom spinach (base 2002)

(Rs/tonne)

Particulars Producer Independent Per centmembers producers difference

Crop yield 8.6 8.3 4.0(tonne/ha)

Cost of production 1,485 1,171 –12.9

Transaction cost 35 437 –92.0

Total cost 1,520 2,067 –26.5(production +transaction)

Output price 3,311 3,074 7.7

Net revenue 1,791 1,007 77.9

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period. Promoting agricultural diversificationtowards high-value commodities and creating theirappropriate markets and processing technologiescan be used as effective tools to alleviate povertyand conserve natural resources in the niche areas.It may require investment on development ofinfrastructure and institutional arrangements, whichsuit the needs of high-value commodities. Thestudy has suggested that better market integration,effective vertical coordination and value additionwould be the pre-requisites for promotingagricultural diversification towards high-valuecommodities.

Third, output prices have emerged as animportant source of agricultural growth in all theregions during the reform period. Price-ledagricultural growth may not be sustained unlesssupported by the government, as has been practisedfor rice and wheat. During the reform period,prices of rice and wheat were raised to protectthe interests of farmers. On the other hand, risingdemand for fruits and vegetables led to a rise intheir prices. These high prices may not continuein the event of globalization when demand-inducedcheaper import would suppress their prices. Theother problem with the price-led growth is that itwould benefit only those farmers, who havesufficient marketable surpluses. The smallholders,who have tiny marketable surplus, will be deprivedof the benefits of rising prices. Such a phenomenonmay lead to growth with wider inequality.

Fourth, area expansion may not continue as afuture source of growth in the land-scarce regions.The growth in such regions will come fromagricultural diversification towards moreremunerative commodities and technologicalbreakthroughs. It is, therefore, important that thesegrowth sources are targeted for sustainable andequitable growth in agriculture.

Wheat production in India:Opportunities and challenges

Wheat is the staple food crop accounting forabout 40 % of total cereals production in India.Its production is constrained by a number ofproblems, and a huge yield loss of 30 % isestimated at all India level. The loss in yield occurs

due to a number of abiotic, biotic and socio-economic constraints. If these could be minimized,the actual production and yield levels can beincreased considerably.

A study conducted across major wheat zonesduring 2004, has revealed nearly 2 tonnes/ha of yieldgap between the actual yields on farmers’ field andfrontline demonstration yield. It varies acrossdifferent wheat zones. The yield difference is high(2 tonnes/ha) in the north-eastern plains zone(covering wheat areas of eastern parts of UttarPradesh, Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal), and centralzone (covering areas of Madhya Pradesh andGujarat). There is also a considerable scope toincrease wheat yield and bridge the yield gap of 1.7tonnes/ha in north western plain zone covering statesof Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and western parts ofUttar Pradesh, despite high yield levels.

AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS AND

COMPUTER APPLICATION

National information system onagricultural education network inIndia (NISAGENET)

NISAGENET has been developed andimplemented on the recommendations of NationalStatistics Commission (NSC) for providinginformation for policy and planning of agriculturaleducation in the country. The project is beingexecuted by the Indian Agricultural StatisticsResearch Institute (IASRI), New Delhi, as theLead Center having collaboration with 42participating organizations that includes SAUs -34, ICAR Deemed Universities - 4, AAIDU - 1,Central Universities – 2 (AMU and BHU) andthe Central Agricultural University, Imphal.

The Central Server Application Software websitehas been implemented on internet at the webaddress http://www.iasri.res.in/NISAGENEThaving the facilities like:

● Agrikhoj – a Search Engine for agriculturaleducation

● Directory – Classified information fromNISAGENET

● Discussion Forum – for sharing information● Reports/Queries – Dynamic Reports for user’s● Reports/Queries on other public funded and/

or private aided and unaided colleges affiliatedto central and other universities are alsoavailable on the web site.

The network architecture of the system ensuresthat NISAGENET acts as an independentinformation system at the organization level andwould be useful for the agricultural educationdata management of the university and its affiliated/constituent colleges as well as from the CentralServer at the IASRI. It will act as a decision

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support system and would be quite useful toacademicians, planners, policy makers, scientistsand technologists, and the students pursuing highereducation in agriculture.

Expert system on wheat cropmanagement

Expert system on wheat crop management is aWeb-based system developed at the IASRI incollaboration with the DWR, Karnal, and IARI,New Delhi.

The system provides the users withrecommendations and advice concerning wheatproduction. This system is subdivided into fourmodules: Variety selection, Plant protection, Culturalpractices and Harvesting technology and one modulefor knowledge management. Variety selectionmodule specifies the variety from the farmer’s pointof view. Plant protection module is subdivided intopathological aspects, entomological aspects andweed management. In pathology, the systemidentifies micro diseases such as leaf rusts, blightsand bunts etc. In entomology, the system identifiespest/insects affecting plants and recommends controlmeasures. The cultural practices module specifiesthe process of cultivation of the crop. The harvestingtechnology module helps in advising the rightmethod, right machinery and right time for theharvest.

A user can interact directly with any moduleas per his requirements. These modules extendinformation to the user through his queries orthrough a click of the button. The developed systemcan be utilized in making similar systems on othercrops. It may be used as an effective tool foragricultural research and planning.

Design resources server

A design resource server (www.iasri.res.in/design/) was created to popularize the research indesign of experiments and analysis of data amongthe stakeholders, experimenters and researchstatisticians. This server is strengthened anduploaded regularly.

● Square lattice designs are resolvable blockdesigns and are quite useful for agriculturalfield experiments. For the benefit of theexperimenters an online software forgeneration of square lattice design with 3replications has been prepared and uploadedon Design Resources Server.

● Supersaturated designs are fractional factorialdesigns. Definition of supersaturated designs,experimental situations in whichsupersaturated designs are useful, efficiencycriteria for evaluation of supersaturateddesigns, catalogue of supersaturated designsfor asymmetrical factorial experiments and

bibliography on supersaturated designs hasbeen uploaded on Design Resources Server.The complete details of the design can beobtained by clicking on the design parametersin the catalogue.

● Designs for biological assays help in theestimation of the relative potency of the testpreparation with respect to standard one.Material on contrasts of interest in parallelline assays and slope ratio assays has beenuploaded on Design Resources Server.

● Hadamard matrices have a tremendouspotential for application in many fieldsparticularly in generating fractional factorialdesigns. An online software has beendeveloped. The software also describes themethod by which a Hadamard matrix isgenerated.

● A B-version of the software for generationof efficient nested block designs is prepared.

Web page developed

Lattice designs: This web page contains listof Lattice designs along with the layout for easyaccessibility of the experimenters.

Circular designs: This web page generates layoutplan of circular designs that form an important classof incomplete block designs and is available for allnumber of treatments with smaller number ofreplications. The randomized layout of these designscan also be generated. These designs offer moreflexibility in terms of their availability for any blocksize.

The Agricultural Research Data Book2007

This is eleventh in the series, and is an attemptto put together main components/indicators of such

Outlier in designed experiments

A dissemination Workshop was held on 26 July2007. Some salient achievements of the projectare:• A test statistics for detecting the multiple

outliers in the presence of masking wasdeveloped.

• Some M-estimation procedures areappropriately modified for application indesigned experiments. A new objectivefunction is also developed.

• Least Median of Squares (LMS) has beenmodified for application into the designedexperiments.

• A robustness criterion for identifying robustdesign that is robust against the presence oftwo outliers is developed. It was found thatbinary variance balanced designs are robustagainst the presence of two outliers.

• Software for analyzing experimental data inthe presence of outliers is developed.

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information. The Data Book comprising 261 tables,is organized into 11 sections.

Developing remote sensing basedmethodology for collection ofagricultural statistics in Meghalaya

The project entitled “Developing RemoteSensing Based Methodology for CollectingAgricultural Statistics in Meghalaya” was initiatedin 2003 in collaboration with Space ApplicationCentre (SAC), Ahmedabad and North East SpaceApplication Centre (NE-SAC), Shillong. Its mainobjective was to develop a suitable methodologyfor generation of crop statistics through integrationof remote sensing digital data and field survey.The study was initially carried out in Ri-Bhoidistrict for estimation of area under paddy crop.To validate this methodology, it was repeated inthe next year in two districts of Ri-Bhoi and JantiaHills. Methodology was also found to be flexible

to take care of the problems of North Easternregion i.e. non-availability of land record system,non-accessibility of vast area, undulatingtopography, hilly terrain, etc. Accordingly, SAChas decided to implement this methodology forestimation of area under paddy crop in the entirestate. Meanwhile, attempt was also made to developsuitable methodology for estimation of area underpotato, ginger, pineapple, banana and maize inEast Khasi Hills and West Garo Hills. Suitableintegrated sampling designs were adopted to collectthe data for above crops through field survey.The data related to production statistics,consumption pattern, disposal and seed rate fromthe selected farmers from the Ri-Bhoi, East GaroHills were collected through scientifically designedsurvey schedules. This methodology needs to befurther validated for extending it to other cropsand in the entire state, which is the future courseof action under this project.

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