06 November, 2025Protecting agricultural biodiversity to ensure sustainable food systems
While the Green Revolution significantly enhanced food production to meet rising consumption demand, it led to a loss of biodiversity by promoting cultivation of a small set of high-yielding varieties...
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Tulsi Lingareddy A. Amarender Reddy 
21 August, 2025
- Perspectives
Why India's plan to sell rice for ethanol undermines food and water security
In a recent policy shift with regard to India’s Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme, excess rice stocks of the Food Corporation of India are being made available for ethanol production at a reduced res...
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Akanksha Jain
- 30 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Sowing sunshine: Can agriphotovoltaics offer a path to doubling farmers’ income?
In recent years, the contribution of agriculture and allied sectors to economic output has declined, with farmers’ real incomes virtually stagnating. This article demonstrates that new ideas such as...
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Bidisha Banerjee Subhodeep Basu Soham Roy
- 16 June, 2025
- Perspectives
Why do insecure rural property rights persist?
Poorly specified and weakly enforced property rights over land may reduce productivity in the agricultural sector. This column examines why strong private property rights are not adopted more widely, ...
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Leopoldo Fergusson
- 18 September, 2013
- Articles
The unintended child health consequences of the Green Revolution in India
While the Green Revolution in India greatly enhanced agricultural production, the enhanced use of fertilisers led to the contamination of surface and ground water. This column analyses the impact of f...
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Nidhiya Menon
- 09 September, 2013
- Articles
The role of Bt cotton in improving food security
The role of genetically modified crops in the fight against hunger remains disputed. The debate primarily focuses on whether or not these crops can contribute to sustainable increases in food producti...
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Shahzad Kouser Matin Qaim
- 24 June, 2013
- Articles
Willingness to pay for index-based crop microinsurance in India
Given the significance of the agricultural sector in India and its vulnerability, an adequate and sustainable risk management system is critical. However, uptake of microinsurance is quite low. This c...
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Janani Ramasubramanian
- 22 April, 2013
- Articles
Grain stocks: Is it a problem of storage capacity?
Foodgrains rot due to insufficient storage capacity, even as millions go to bed hungry. This column argues that increasing capacity is only a partial resolution. The crisis has happened before and wil...
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Bharat Ramaswami
- 01 April, 2013
- Articles
Agricultural wages and MNREGA: Exploring the myth
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, India’s flagship programme that guarantees 100 days of minimum wage employment to rural households, has come under attack for pushing up t...
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Kanika Mahajan
- 05 November, 2012
- Articles
Designing microfinance for agricultural growth
Credit and information constraints are particularly acute for farmers in developing countries, and can have a strong impact on their productivity.
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Pushkar Maitra Sandip Mitra Dilip Mookherjee Alberto Motta Sujata Visaria
- 31 March, 2012
- IGC Research on India
Evaluating the Performance of the Kisan Credit Card Scheme in Bihar
The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Scheme was introduced in India in 1998-99 has since become a flagship programme providing access to short-term credit in the agricultural sector. According to the Governmen...
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Areendam Chanda
- 01 February, 2012
- IGC Research on India
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Climate change and Indian agriculture
Indian agriculture remains vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, and the looming threat of climate change may expose this vulnerability further. This article presents findings from a study that uses ...
- Siddharth Hari Parth Khare Arvind Subramanian
- 16 August, 2018
- Articles
India's farm crisis: Decades old and with deep roots
In this Perspectives piece, Prof. Himanshu argues that the crisis in Indian agriculture today is not a new one; it goes back many years. Therefore, the problems of farmers cannot be addressed by the b...
- Himanshu .
- 12 April, 2019
- Perspectives
How new technologies can raise farm productivity
Lele and Goswami discuss the potential of new technologies in raising farm productivity, and the challenges involved in turning the power of information and other technologies into a farmer-friendly t...
- Sambuddha Goswami Uma Lele
- 06 December, 2017
- Articles