Other Agriculture Study
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Publication
Republic of India : Accelerating Agricultural Productivity Growth
(Washington, DC, 2014-05-21)In the past 50 years, Indian agriculture has undergone a major transformation, from dependence on food aid to becoming a consistent net food exporter. The gradual reforms in the agricultural sector (following the broader macro-reforms of the early 1990s) spurred some unprecedented innovations and changes in the food sector driven by private investment. These impressive achievements must now be viewed in light of the policy and investment imperatives that lie ahead. Agricultural growth has improved in recent years (averaging about 3.5 percent since 2004-05), but at a long-term trend rate of growth of 3 percent, agriculture has underperformed relative to its potential. The pockets of post-reform dynamism that have emerged evidently have not reached a sufficiently large scale to influence the sector's performance. For the vast population that still derives a living directly or indirectly from agriculture, achieving "faster, more inclusive, and sustainable growth', the objectives at the heart of the Twelfth five year plan, depends critically on simultaneous efforts to improve agriculture's performance and develop new sources of employment for the disproportionately large share of the labor force still on the farm. The scope of this study is broad in the sense that it marshals considerable empirical evidence and analyses to address those issues. Yet the scope is restricted in the sense that the study does not address all of the issues. A wealth of knowledge exists (and continuing analytical work proceeds) on other major strategic issues, water and irrigation management, food grain management, and public expenditures on agriculture, for example, and the findings of this study must be seen in that context. The lack of sufficient quality data, and often the lack of access to such data, also prevents some issues from being explored in greater depth. Finally, some important issues require more focused and dedicated analysis, such as food safety and quality standards, agricultural trade, and food price increases. This relationship between longer-term strategic issues and contemporary concerns, such as water resource management and food prices, are highlighted in this study through the prism of productivity, but they too require further analysis to fully address the underlying issues. -
Publication
India - Crop Insurance Non-Lending Technical Assistance : Summary of Policy Suggestions
(World Bank, 2011-04-01)At the request of Government of India (GOI), the World Bank has provided technical assistance to the public insurance company, Agriculture Insurance Company of India (AICI) to develop an actuarially sound rating methodology and improve the contract design of the area-yield based National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS) to reduce delays in claim settlement; to design and ratemaking of new weather index insurance products under the weather based crop insurance scheme; and to perform a risk assessment of AICI's insurance portfolio and to suggest cost-effective risk financing solutions (including reinsurance). Crop insurance can contribute to increasing access to rural finance and is required to ensure a more viable agriculture credit business. An improved crop insurance program supports and complements other critical agriculture sector related measures, including the reform of rural credit cooperatives, agriculture marketing reforms and efforts to improve agriculture extension and productivity. A better understanding of risks entailed in particular crops in particular areas which can be ascertained through assessing the actuarially sound insurance premium rates for the crop can also be a significant input to agriculture policy at sub-national and national levels. Similarly, crop insurance is vital for creditors, such as banks and rural cooperatives, which otherwise face significant risks in agriculture lending that are otherwise difficult to price given political economy factors and the underlying fragile economics of agriculture. The inherent risks in agriculture in India with its high degree of dependence on rain-fed cultivation, a well developed and widely used agriculture insurance program is critical from a farmer perspective. Without this, farmers run the risk of crop failures, which in turn, lead to inability to service their debts. Since crop cycles often follow seamlessly from one season to the next, delinquency on account of one crop could mean being ruled out of the formal banking system for the next crop cycle. -
Publication
Enhancing Crop Insurance in India
(World Bank, 2011-04-01)The broad structure of Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (mNAIS), the main crop insurance program in India, is technically sound and appropriate in the context of India. The NAIS is based on an indexed approach, where average crop yield of an insurance unit, or IU, (i.e., block) is the index used. The insurance is mandatory for all farmers that borrow from financial institutions, though insurance cover is also available to non-borrowers. The actual yield of the insured crop (as measured by crop cutting experiments) in the IU is compared to the threshold yield. If the former is lower than the latter, all insured farmers in the IU are eligible for the same rate of indemnity payout. Individual crop insurance will have been prohibitively expensive, or even impossible, in a country such as India with so many small and marginal farms. Further, the method of using an 'area based approach' has several other merits and, most importantly, it mitigates moral hazard and adverse selection. This report offers detailed analysis of a number of technical and operational issues which should be addressed if mNAIS is to be implemented. GOI is to be complemented on its bold vision of the future of agriculture insurance through modifying NAIS, an action which, if well implemented, has the potential for significant economic and political economy gains. The policy note World Bank (2010) supported this vision and offered specific policy recommendations for mNAIS, with reference to the Joint Group report (2004). This technical report is intended as a complement to World Bank (2010) and also to the previous technical report World Bank (2007a), by offering detailed technical analysis of a number of issues that will be critical to the success of mNAIS. -
Publication
India Marine Fisheries : Issues, Opportunities and Transitions for Sustainable Development
(World Bank, 2010-08-01)This study represents a collaborative initiative by the World Bank and the Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, to review the marine fisheries sub-sector, within a broader sector that also includes aquaculture and inland fisheries. The policy note provides a major step forward in understanding current issues and future opportunities facing the marine fisheries sub-sector. The marine fishing sub-sector accounts for approximately one percent of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but forms an important component of the rural coastal economy, generating income, employment, livelihoods, and food security for an estimated 3.52 million people along the 8,118 km Indian coastline, who depend on fishing for their livelihoods. The study represents an initial analytical review of the Indian marine sub-sector with special emphasis on inshore waters, which faces the greatest challenges for management and sustainable development. The main objectives of the study were to: a) appraise the general structure, conduct and performance of the marine fisheries sub-sector in India with particular focus on the role that marine fishery plays in rural livelihoods for coastal communities; b) identify the main constraints in the marine sub-sector that are impacting on biological sustainability and economically healthy fisheries; c) draw on national and international experience to recommend alternative policy approaches and strategies to address these issues; and d) inform the Government of India during subsequent consultations with key stakeholders about long-term transformations towards better sub-sector performance. -
Publication
Food Price Increases in South Asia : National Responses and Regional Dimensions
(World Bank, 2010-06-01)Food price inflation not only threatens macroeconomic stability but also decreases the welfare levels of most households, especially the poorer ones, for whom food consumption constitutes a relatively large share of total expenditures. This report analyzes the causes and effects of food price inflation in South Asia during the period 2007?08 and beyond; simulates the impact of food price increases on household welfare and the potential of adjustments in consumer and producer behavior for mitigating the negative impact on welfare; and assesses the potential impact of regional trade liberalization on food prices. The appendixes describe the policy reactions of individual governments to the increases in food prices against the background of their respective domestic food policies. The focus is on wheat and rice, which are the main food staples in South Asia and together account for an important part of food expenditures of the poor. By analyzing the household?level impacts of the food crisis and taking stock of the policy responses of national governments, including their regional dimensions, the report allows lessons to be drawn regarding the policies that South Asian governments may want to follow to enable them to react appropriately in case another food crisis unfolds, while at the same time helping to prevent such a crisis from occurring. -
Publication
India : Power Supply to Agriculture, Volume 3. Andhra Pradesh Case Study
(Washington, DC, 2001-06-15)After almost a decade of high-level effort to bring the charges (tariffs) that farmers pay for electricity more nearly into line with the costs of supply, India has barely made a dent in the longstanding and increasingly uneconomical practice of subsidizing power to agricultural consumers for irrigation. Progress has been slowed by the understandable but misplaced concern that higher tariffs would harm farmers--and that the injured parties would take political revenge on the reformers. This study seeks to dispel that anxiety. It is the result of a joint effort by the Bank and the states of Haryana and Adhra Pradesh , both of which have begun raising the price of electriicity to agriculture. Its central contribution to policy discussion is the detail in which it documents the costs--ususally neither acknowledged nor clearly defined--to farmers in those states of subsidies that actually harm agricultural operations more than they help as well as the benefits that the farmers would get from improved quality of electricity services. The costs--in power outages, damaged pumping equipment, irrigation foregone because of power losses, distorted investment patterns, among others--exact a heavy toll from ordinary farmers. In the form of deficits, the subsidies also sap state budgets of funds that could otherwise be invested in rural infrastructure, extension services, and advanced agricultural technology. As unrecovered costs, they starve suppliers of funds for maintenance and improved service. On the other side of the coin lie the benefits that reliable flows of power and good quality of other electricity services could deliver to rural India. -
Publication
India : Power Supply to Agriculture, Volume 1. Summary Report
(Washington, DC, 2001-06-15)After almost a decade of high-level effort to bring the charges (tariffs) that farmers pay for electricity more nearly into line with the costs of supply, India has barely made a dent in the longstanding and increasingly uneconomical practice of subsidizing power to agricultural consumers for irrigation. Progress has been slowed by the understandable but misplaced concern that higher tariffs would harm farmers--and that the injured parties would take political revenge on the reformers. This study seeks to dispel that anxiety. It is the result of a joint effort by the Bank and the states of Haryana and Adhra Pradesh , both of which have begun raising the price of electriicity to agriculture. Its central contribution to policy discussion is the detail in which it documents the costs--ususally neither acknowledged nor clearly defined--to farmers in those states of subsidies that actually harm agricultural operations more than they help as well as the benefits that the farmers would get from improved quality of electricity services. The costs--in power outages, damaged pumping equipment, irrigation foregone because of power losses, distorted investment patterns, among others--exact a heavy toll from ordinary farmers. In the form of deficits, the subsidies also sap state budgets of funds that could otherwise be invested in rural infrastructure, extension services, and advanced agricultural technology. As unrecovered costs, they starve suppliers of funds for maintenance and improved service. On the other side of the coin lie the benefits that reliable flows of power and good quality of other electricity services could deliver to rural India. -
Publication
India : Power Supply to Agriculture, Volume 2. Haryana Case Study
(Washington, DC, 2001-06-15)After almost a decade of high-level effort to bring the charges (tariffs) that farmers pay for electricity more nearly into line with the costs of supply, India has barely made a dent in the longstanding and increasingly uneconomical practice of subsidizing power to agricultural consumers for irrigation. Progress has been slowed by the understandable but misplaced concern that higher tariffs would harm farmers--and that the injured parties would take political revenge on the reformers. This study seeks to dispel that anxiety. It is the result of a joint effort by the Bank and the states of Haryana and Adhra Pradesh , both of which have begun raising the price of electriicity to agriculture. Its central contribution to policy discussion is the detail in which it documents the costs--ususally neither acknowledged nor clearly defined--to farmers in those states of subsidies that actually harm agricultural operations more than they help as well as the benefits that the farmers would get from improved quality of electricity services. The costs--in power outages, damaged pumping equipment, irrigation foregone because of power losses, distorted investment patterns, among others--exact a heavy toll from ordinary farmers. In the form of deficits, the subsidies also sap state budgets of funds that could otherwise be invested in rural infrastructure, extension services, and advanced agricultural technology. As unrecovered costs, they starve suppliers of funds for maintenance and improved service. On the other side of the coin lie the benefits that reliable flows of power and good quality of other electricity services could deliver to rural India. -
Publication
India : Power Supply to Agriculture, Volume 4. Methodological Framework and Sampling Procedures Report
(Washington, DC, 2001-06-15)After almost a decade of high-level effort to bring the charges (tariffs) that farmers pay for electricity more nearly into line with the costs of supply, India has barely made a dent in the longstanding and increasingly uneconomical practice of subsidizing power to agricultural consumers for irrigation. Progress has been slowed by the understandable but misplaced concern that higher tariffs would harm farmers--and that the injured parties would take political revenge on the reformers. This study seeks to dispel that anxiety. It is the result of a joint effort by the Bank and the states of Haryana and Adhra Pradesh , both of which have begun raising the price of electriicity to agriculture. Its central contribution to policy discussion is the detail in which it documents the costs--ususally neither acknowledged nor clearly defined--to farmers in those states of subsidies that actually harm agricultural operations more than they help as well as the benefits that the farmers would get from improved quality of electricity services. The costs--in power outages, damaged pumping equipment, irrigation foregone because of power losses, distorted investment patterns, among others--exact a heavy toll from ordinary farmers. In the form of deficits, the subsidies also sap state budgets of funds that could otherwise be invested in rural infrastructure, extension services, and advanced agricultural technology. As unrecovered costs, they starve suppliers of funds for maintenance and improved service. On the other side of the coin lie the benefits that reliable flows of power and good quality of other electricity services could deliver to rural India.