<p>Indian agriculture has been facing one of the worst crises since Independence. The contribution of agriculture to national income is declining at a faster pace compared to the percentage of population depending on it. The trends in profitability are not consistent across the years, which is a typical character of agriculture. A number of studies have tried to examine and understand the reasons; important ones include technological, environmental, and policy related. The poor performance and the declining profitability of agriculture due to one or more reasons have resulted in widespread household indebtedness, which is often identified as the main reason for the farmer suicides.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><br /> This volume is a collection of papers in honour of Padma Bhushan Prof. Vijay Shankar Vyas who is amongst the first and leading policy economists in India. He has had significant policy contributions at the national and international levels. This collection is a reflection of his research interests and contribution to agricultural policy research. In total, 16 eminent scholars have contributed to the volume.<span style="line-height: 1.6em;">These papers have been put together in a thematic format and deal mainly with five important aspects of Indian agriculture: i) Indian Agriculture: Policies and Performance, ii) Resource Policies and Agriculture, iii) Employment and Decent Work, iv) New Trends in Agriculture and Challenges, and v) Experiences from Other Countries. It also includes a paper on China which deals with poverty and inequality in the context of reforms. Most of the papers provide an all India perspective. Though some of the papers are specific to the themes and locations, they provide valuable insights in to the broader array of issues and problems afflicting the agricultural sector in India. The authors through their contributions have touched upon issues that are dear to Prof. Vyas and also provide futuristic scenario of Asian agriculture of which Indian agriculture is a vital cog.</span></p>

<p><strong>Surjit Singh</strong> is Director, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. Earlier he was Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur, and was Chair Professor, Bank of India Chair on Rural Credit, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. He has been member of various committees and task forces at the national and state levels. He has widely published and has 10 books to his credit.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>V. Ratna Reddy</strong> is Professor at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He was visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK and School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. He has been a consultant to UNDP, World Bank, DFID, European Commission, ICRISAT, etc. His research interests include: environ-mental and natural resource econo-mics, new institutional economics and agricultural policy. Dr. Reddy has about hundred research publications in international and national journals and five books to his credit.</p>

<p><strong>Jock R. Anderson</strong> was a Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of New England, Armidale, Australia. He directed the 1984-85 Impact Study of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research and joined the World Bank in 1989, where he served as an Agriculture Adviser, including a stint in its Operations Evaluation Department, now the Independent Evaluation Group, where he continues to serve.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>S.L. Bapna</strong> is Chairman, Post Graduate Programme in Agribusiness Management, National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Jaipur. Earlier he was professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). His specialisation is in agricultural marketing and procurement of raw material for agro-processing.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Regina Birner</strong> was an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Rural Development at the University of Göttingen, Germany. She joined the Development Strategy and Governance Division of IFPRI in 2004 to lead the Institute’s research programme on “Governance for Agriculture and Rural Development”. Her research interests include the political economy of agricultural policy-making and the analysis of local governance, rural service provision and public sector reforms, including contemporary studies in several Indian States.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>G.K. Chadha</strong> is Member, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India. Earlier, he was Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Economics Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was Chairman UGC Pay Review Committee. He has been consultant to various international organisations and has 16 books to his credit and more than 80 research papers in national and international journals.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Kanchan Chopra</strong> is Director, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. She also heads the Environmental and Resource Unit of the Institute. She has published extensively on issues at the interface of environment and development in particular water and forest resource management and common property resources. Prof. Chopra is an Associate of the lately initiated Ecological and Environmental Economics Programme of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics hosted by the ICTP, Trieste.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Ralph W. Cummings Jr</strong>. has served with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), The Rockefeller Foundation and the Harvard Development Advisory Service, as well as on the faculties of several US universities. He has been the US representative to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the US Executive Director to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He has authored, co-authored and edited several books and numerous published articles.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>R.S. Deshpande </strong>is Director, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. He also worked at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. He specialises in development economics, agricultural economics, international trade and econometrics. He has published extensively on agricultural development, international trade in agriculture, WTO and its impact on agriculture, movements, irrigation and watershed development. He has been consultant to projects of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Land Equity International.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>S. Mahendra Dev</strong> is Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. He was earlier Director, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He has written extensively on agricultural development, poverty and public policy, food security, employment guarantee schemes, social security, farm and non-farm employment. He has been a consultant and advisor to many international organisations like the UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute and ESCAP. He has been a member of several government committees.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Vasant P. Gandhi</strong> is Chairman, Centre for Management in Agriculture, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He was consultant and researcher with the World Bank and Research Fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC and consultant to numerous other organisations including the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Government of Gujarat, Government of Madhya Pradesh and several private companies. Dr. Gandhi has published and presented extensively, both nationally and internationally, and has current interest in management of agro-industries and marketing of agricultural inputs.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Ashok Gulati</strong> is Director in Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute. During January 2001 to February 2006, he was Director of the Markets, Trade and Institutions Division at IFPRI, prior to which he was NABARD Chair Professor at the Institute of Economic Growth, and a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>K.C. Hiremath</strong> is editor-in-chief of Agricultural Economics Research Review since 1988.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>N. Vijay Jagannathan</strong> is the Sector Manager for Water in the Sustainable Development Department, Middle East and North Africa Region, of the World Bank Group. Prior to this assignment, he worked on water supply and sanitation programmes in Southeast Asia, and in the World Bank’s infrastructure and environment departments. Before joining the World Bank, Dr. Jagannathan worked for 16 years in the India Administrative Service in various positions in West Bengal.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>N.S. Jodha </strong>is Policy Analyst at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal. Dr. Jodha has been engaged in research, training and advisory work in dry tropics (of India as well as Africa) and mountain regions (i.e., countries of Hindukush-Himalaya) while associated with Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centres such as the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), ICIMOD, World Bank and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) as well as several national and bilateral agencies. He has published several papers and books.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>K.P. Kannan </strong>is Member, National Commission for Enterprises in Unorganised Sector. He was earlier Fellow &amp; Director and Indian Planning Commission Chair Professor of Development Economics, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. Dr. Kannan has widely published in national and international journals.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>A. Ganesh Kumar </strong>is an Associate Professor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai. He specialises in agricultural economics, especially food security issues, computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling related to that, international trade competitiveness and finance, and econometric applications.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Michael Lipton</strong> is Research Professor of Economics, University of Sussex, Brighton, England. His main research interest is the reduction of poverty as it is affected by changes in agricultural technology, especially irrigation choices and new varieties of seeds (including transgenic), rural-urban economic relations and resource flows, nutrition, economic aid, changing population size and structure, and farm size and land reform, on which he is completing a book. He has authored several books and numerous articles in various journals. He has worked with the World Bank, ILO and FAO.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>K.V. Raju</strong> is Chief Economic Advisor to the Chief Minister of Karnataka. He served as a faculty member in Institute for Social and Economic Change for about two decades. He specialises in ecological economics, resource economics, urban planning, irrigation economics and rural development. He has published several books.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>V.M. Rao</strong> is Honorary Visiting Fellow, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore. He is also associated with Indian School of Political Economy, Pune, and Public Affairs Foundation, Bangalore. He was Member, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, Government of India (1991-1995). He has had a long association with Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, Mumbai. His writings have been published in many academic journals.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>V. Ratna Reddy</strong> is Professor at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He was visiting fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, UK and School of Geography, University of Leeds, UK. He has been a consultant to UNDP, World Bank, DFID, European Commission, ICRISAT, etc. His research interests include: environmental and natural resource economics, new institutional economics and agricultural policy. Dr. Reddy has about hundred research publications in international and national journals and five books to his credit.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Tushaar Shah </strong>is Senior Advisor to the DG IWMI India. He was formerly the Director of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand. He has consulted with scores of NGOs, government and lending institutions including the World Bank, Ford Foundation, Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation, Swedish International Development Agency, Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Most recently, Prof. Shah works primarily on water policies and institutions.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Ajit Kumar Singh </strong>is Director, Giri Institute of Development Studies, Lucknow. Prof. Singh has been a member of various working groups and committees of the government at the state and central level. His main areas of interest are regional and rural development, state finances and human development.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Richa Singh </strong>is an UGC Senior Research Fellow at CSRD, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked intensively on issues related to rural labour in India and has published a number of research papers in reputed journals in her area of specialisation.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Surjit Singh</strong> is Director, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. Earlier he was Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur, and was Chair Professor, Bank of India Chair on Rural Credit, Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur. He has been member of various committees and task forces at the national and state levels. He has widely published and has 10 books to his credit.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Shilp Verma</strong> is Doctoral Research Fellow, UNESCO-IHE, The Hague Area, Netherlands. He was Water Policy Researcher at International Water Management Institute (IWMI-Tata Water Policy Programme, Anand) and PRM Participant at Institute of Rural Management, Anand. His interests are: water use in agriculture, river-basin development and management, water-poverty linkages, energy-irrigation nexus, groundwater governance, management and economic institutions.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Vinod Vyasulu</strong> has taught at the IIM Bangalore, XLRI, Jamshedpur, and held the RBI Chair in the Institute for Social and Economic Change. He has been Director of the Institute of Public Enterprise Hyderabad. At present, he is Director of the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies in Bangalore and plans to work on science fiction.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Qi Zhang </strong>is research fellow at Institute for World Economy &amp; Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. He is also an academic consultant for the Center for Agricultural Policies, Chinese Academy of Sciences.</p>