Farm Sector Laws and their Implications for Punjab Agriculture
Three farm sector bills were passed by the Parliament of India in September, 2020 and turned into laws. These laws are named as
following:
- The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion
and Facilitation) Act, 2020. - Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of
Price Assurance and farm Services Act, 2020. - Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
The first law aims at creating an ecosystem for providing freedom to farmers and traders to trade with free choice. The second law aims at empowering the farmers to engage with the agri-business firms and other important players of agricultural value chains by providing a national framework for mutual agreements. The third law removes the basic food items from the list of essential commodities in order to reduce excessive regulatory restrictions on private business operations in agriculture.
- Published in POLICY
Groundwater of Afghanistan (potential capacity, scarcity, security issues, and solutions)
Afghanistan is a landlocked mountainous country with plains in the north and southwest, which is described as being located within South and Central Asia. Water is the lifeblood of the people of Afghanistan, not just for living but also for the economy, which has traditionally been dominated by agriculture. Over 80% of the country’s water resources originate within the Hindu Kush mountain ranges at altitudes over 2000 m. The mountains perform as natural water storage, with snow throughout the winter and snowmelt within the summer that supports perennial flow of all the major rivers.
- Published in AFGHANISTAN, POLICY
Investing in rural people in Sri Lanka
IFAD is one of Sri Lanka’s longest-standing development partners. In 1978, the Kirindi Oya Irrigation and Settlement Project was launched as IFAD’s first investment in the country. The goal was to increase food production, provide employment opportunities and raise rural incomes.
Altogether, IFAD has implemented 18 projects in Sri Lanka, benefiting 614,832 households at a total cost of US$590.6 million (with IFAD providing US$337.9 million in financing).
Today, IFAD continues to actively engage in Sri Lanka, with investments aimed at contributing to the achievement of the SDGs, specifically in the areas of food security, sustainable agricultural production and productivity, and improved income opportunities for rural households.
Accelerating progress towards SDG2 – Policy effectiveness analysis
The Food and Nutrition Security Impact, Resilience, Sustainability and Transformation (FIRST) Programme represents a partnership between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Union (EU). In 2018, the partnership agreed on the need to have a policy effectiveness analysis conducted in most of the FIRST countries.
As policy implementation rather than formulation is repeatedly raised as one of Pakistan’s challenges, this assessment considered the implementation challenges of specific policy processes relevant to the FAO-EU partnership in the country, rather than the entire suite of relevant policies. It considered the necessary conditions to move forward and how best to meet these conditions, including through more strategic resource allocation and more effective approaches to building institutional capacity.
Agricultural Transformation in Nepal
This book addresses some key strategic questions related to agriculture in the context of major contemporary developments and emerging challenges in Nepal such as the changing role of agriculture with economic growth, structural transformation in reducing poverty, improving nutritional outcomes, and addressing the challenges of climate change. The book also suggests policy measures to improve the delivery of critical inputs and services and ensure the participation of marginal and smallholders in high-value chains. Further, it discusses how the new federal system and governance structure will affect the delivery of agricultural technology and services.
An Analysis of Agriculture Production Scenario in Nepal
Agriculture and Livestock Development is used to calculate the annual average yield of agricultural crops. The result shows that increment in production of cereal crops and vegetables is greater than area due to availability of irrigation facilities and fertilizers, use of improved and hybrid seeds and technological knowledge among the farmers. The percentage increase in area, production and productivity of cash crop in 2018/19 compared to 2009/10 is 18%, 34.38% and 14.1% respectively. The technological innovations and use of high yielding varieties has played a major role to increase production of pulses in Nepal. Among pulses, the winter crop lentil dominates in production (65.76%) as well as in area coverage (62.93%). There is greater increment in areas of fruits compared to production leading to 2% decrease in productivity of fruits in 2018/19 compared to 2009/10. Summer fruits shared 63% and 67.1% of total fruit productive areas and total fruit production respectively. More than 75% of total summer fruits area and production is shared by mango and banana. Citrus fruits shared about 23% of total fruit productive area and production. Winter fruits shared 13.22% of total productive area and 9.80% of total fruit production. In addition to modern technology, status of soil fertility, crop management practices, quality of seeds, climate and incidence of pests and diseases are responsible for fluctuation of agricultural production in Nepal.
Value chain and policy interventions to accelerate adoption of zero tillage in rice-wheat farming systems across the Indo-Gangetic Plains
This project aimed to accelerate the adoption of Zero-Till seed drills (including the Happy Seeder) to reduce crop residue burning and boost sustainable food energy water security.
Stubble burning, combined with the traditional practice of tillage prior to crop establishment has a detrimental impact on soil health and quality. The development of Conservation Agriculture (CA) practices, characterised by the direct sowing of crop into standing (retained) stubble, is termed Zero-Till and provides a real alternative to traditional farming techniques. The Happy Seeder developed specifically for the intensive rice-wheat cropping system of the Indo-Gangetic Plains (with significant project investment by ACIAR) is presented as the single most viable option for direct sowing of wheat crops into standing rice stubble. As State Governments move towards enforcing a ban of the burning of stubble across India, it is likely that there will be an increased motivation by farmers to adopt the Happy Seeder. However, experience to date has indicated that Happy Seeder adoption has been less than optimal, there is a need to identify how farmer adoption can be accelerated.
- Published in POLICY
Agricultural land underutilisation in the hills of Nepal: Investigating socio-environmental pathways of change
Human development is possible only within planetary boundaries The tendency to pit economic development against the environment has led the world towards a dead end. Several voices called to reinterweave them, just as humanity is interwoven with the health of nonhuman natures and ultimately the planet. The notion of responsible wellbeing was suggested as being cognizant of the implications of consumption and accountability and the ways to factor in the interests of future generations. Responsible wellbeing for people and planet is about internalizing environmental and social costs in the true value of goods and services, recognizing that the value extends well beyond the monetary. It is about conceptualizing the systems underpinning humanity as socioecological or socionatural systems—and development as positive change in those systems. If we wish to celebrate another 30 years of human development, attention must extend to all societies and to the behaviour of citizens who have already achieved high levels of human development on traditional measures”
The next frontier-Human development and the Anthropocene
Human development is possible only within planetary boundaries The tendency to pit economic development against the environment has led the world towards a dead end. Several voices called to reinterweave them, just as humanity is interwoven with the health of nonhuman natures and ultimately the planet. The notion of responsible wellbeing was suggested as being cognizant of the implications of consumption and accountability and the ways to factor in the interests of future generations. Responsible wellbeing for people and planet is about internalizing environmental and social costs in the true value of goods and services, recognizing that the value extends well beyond the monetary. It is about conceptualizing the systems underpinning humanity as socioecological or socionatural systems—and development as positive change in those systems. If we wish to celebrate another 30 years of human development, attention must extend to all societies and to the behaviour of citizens who have already achieved high levels of human development on traditional measures”
- Published in POLICY
Coordination in multi-actor policy implementation
There is an increasing involvement of a number of non-state actors such as NGOs and community based organisations (CBOs) in poverty alleviation programmes. This calls for greater coordination among the actors for the effective implementation of such programmes. This article explores the various factors influencing coordination in multi-actor policy implementation, using a case study of a rural livelihoods enhancement programme implemented in the state of Odisha in India. The findings suggest that programme design, frequency of interaction, interdependency among actors, credibility of NGOs, leadership and personal traits have helped in coordination among state, NGOs and CBOs.
- Published in POLICY