|
Investing in India's Agricultural Markets: A Source of Growth and Equity? India’s high agricultural tariffs and growing farm subsidies have received much attention, but the implications of domestic policies that have discouraged agribusiness investment and created inefficient domestic markets have received less attention. This research examines the potential impacts of improvements in marketing efficiency that might be associated with reforms leading to increased private investment in agricultural markets and agribusiness. Results are compared with those of more "traditional" reform scenarios involving elimination of agricultural subsidies and tariffs. The analysis uses a computable general equilibrium framework that accounts for the impacts of changes in food expenditures and farm output associated with increased marketing efficiency, as well as the distributive impacts of urban and rural households by income class. The results suggest that improved agricultural marketing efficiency could yield substantial economy-wide gains in income and employment, positive price impacts for both producers and consumers, and distributional gains favoring low income households. See Investing in India's Agricultural Markets: A Source of Growth and Equity? See Investing in India's Agricultural Markets: A Source of Growth and Equity? by Maurice Landes and Mary E. Burfisher, Global Trade Analysis Project Conference paper, May 2008. Contact: Maurice Landes.
New Estimates of Supply Response for Major Indian Crops. New econometric estimates indicate that production of major crops in India has become more responsive to changes in output prices during the post-reform period. The estimates, using Indian state level data for 1970/71-2004/05, show that area response for most crops has increased 20-40 percent since the economic reforms of the early 1990s. For cereal crops, yield response to price changes is shown to now be larger than area response, indicating that farmers are increasingly responding to price incentives by adjusting use of non-acreage inputs rather than crop area. The results are reported in Acreage and Yield Response for Major Crops in the Pre- and Post-Reform Periods in India: A Dynamic Panel Data Approach, a 2008 report by G. Mythili prepared as part of a joint research project between ERS and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research. Contact: Maurice Landes.
Agricultural Policy Reform. Faster economic growth, weak farm sector performance, and political changes in India have brought agriculture to the center of policy discussions, but it has been difficult to reach consensus on the reform agenda. Developments since the early 1990s highlight the need for consensus in several areas, including separation of producer price stabilization and income support policies, change in trade policies that tax producers or constrain emergence of competitive domestic markets, and reform of a web of regulatory measures that impede domestic and foreign private investment in market infrastructure and agribusiness. Results of this research are reported in "Farm Sector Performance and Reform Agenda," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XXXIX, No. 32, Mumbai, India, August 7, 2004. Contact: Maurice Landes.
|
