Papers by Madhusudan Bhattarai
The Challenge of Food Security
The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (lCRISAT) is a non-profit, n... more The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (lCRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid tropics have over 2 billion people, of whom 644 million are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT innovations help the dryland poor move from poverty to prosperity by harnessing markets while managing risksa strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented development (lMOD). ICRISAT is headquartered in Patancheru near Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, with two regional hubs and five country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. www.icrisat.org CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research Centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org This work has been undertaken as part of the
It is often argued that the national rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) introduced durin... more It is often argued that the national rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGS) introduced during 2006 has increased the farm wage rate substantially that resulted in sharp reduction in farmers’ profitability. Is there any substance in this argument? In this paper, we have done an attempt to specifically study this issue utilizing data series of cost of cultivation survey data available for different crops published by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. Utilizing these cost of cultivation data from 2000-01 to 2010-11, we have analyzed impacts of MGNREGS on farm profitability. We have included here nine different crops namely paddy, wheat, sorghum, chick pea, pigeon pea, rapeseed and mustard, groundnut, sugarcane and cotton for the analysis. As the productivity of crop often determines its profitability, two states for each crop, one each from the category of high area with high productivity (HAHP) and another one from high area with low productivity (HALP), have been...
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment GuaranteeAct (MGNREGA) Programme is one of the flagship ... more Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment GuaranteeAct (MGNREGA) Programme is one of the flagship programmes of the Government of India to improve rural livlihood in the country, especially to provide employment during slack season of agrciultural activities, when unemployment is rampant in rural India. Until August 2014, the MGNREGA has generated 1760.78 crores of mandays of work in rural areas with an expenditure of Rs. 2,65,727 croers, of which, nearly 70% were distributed as wages. This paper examines the impact of MGNREGA in 10 semi-arid villages spread acrsoss Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra states. Our assessment finds that the implementation of MGNREGA in the10 villages across the three states has varied experiences. In none of the villages the average working days under the programme was found to be more than 40 days per annum. The average wage received by the beneficiaries was well below the prevailing agricultural labor wage rate in the village. However, the works ...
With expenditure of USD8 billion per annum, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarante... more With expenditure of USD8 billion per annum, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes (MGNREGS) of India is one of the largest Social Safety Nets (SSN) programs in the developing world. The program aims to improve rural livelihood in India by reducing overall vulnerability and distress of rural poor. The nature and degree of implementation of the program vary across the Indian states (provinces); Andhra Pradesh is one of the states which has received/spent largest national level MGNREGS funding. Using panel data sets out of ICRISAT targeted four villages (and 227 households) in Andhra Pradesh state for the last 5 years (2007-11), we quantified the impact on the program on credit and debt structure the rural households, using quasi- experimental design such as difference-in-difference method of impact assessment. Extending the regression model, we evaluated factors determinant of the level of debt and its structure by using 5 years of panel household data by the ...
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarrentee Act (MGNREGA) aims to provide 100 days of wor... more Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarrentee Act (MGNREGA) aims to provide 100 days of work to a household in rural area who is willing to do manual work and deamdns for such work from the local government. The programme involves flexible working hour and payment on ‘piece rate’ basis which will further help women to particpate, after attending their routine household chores. Not suprisingly, the extent of participation of women in MGNREGA rose to 50% during 2011, with many states showing an overwhelming response of more than 90% for women. The present study is based on the filed work of 10 villages in semi-arid areas from Gujarat, Mahrashtra and Madhya Pradesh states of India, which involves in total of 484 women from 326 households, who had particpated in MGNREGA work at least once between 2006-13, spread across the three states. The results shows the women acknowledges positive impact of the programme on themselves and their households in various aspects. Many also opened ...
In this study, the key sectors of the village economy are identified by estimating output, income... more In this study, the key sectors of the village economy are identified by estimating output, income and employment multipliers generated from Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). For this purpose, a 64 X 64 sector SAM is constructed for Belladamadagu village of Tumkur district highlighting transactions for 2012-13. The primary data from 25 households, 21 farmers, 10 leaf plate makers, 4 luggage auto transport operators, 10 households involved in services have been used. In addition, the study has analyzed the role of MGNREGA by obtaining data from 35 participants and 22 non participants of MGNREGA.
The impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on agricultural... more The impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on agricultural labour supply and agricultural wage rate is a popular policy concern in India. The available literature on the issue provides mixed findings which motivated the authors to carry out this study.
Social Protection Programmes are those programmes instituted by governments or society that help ... more Social Protection Programmes are those programmes instituted by governments or society that help protect citizens from “risks, vulnerabilities and deprivations”. Social Protection can be considered like an insurance against poverty, this can be instituted by governments (official social protection) or otherwise (unofficial social protection). Social Safety Nets are subsets of such programmes Such protection is needed as poverty is a major issue in rural India, 72 percent of the population lives in rural areas. It is estimated that 42 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line. This is especially true in the semi-arid tropics of India, where 40.5% of India’s rural poor lives, despite only covering 37% of the country’s area. The rural poor in SAT India are faced with the shocks and seasonalities that increase vulnerability, such as the issues of water scarcity under increasingly variable climatic conditions, food security and issues of livelihood security. SAT Andhra...
The social protection programmes range from various forms of cash transfers—unconditional, condit... more The social protection programmes range from various forms of cash transfers—unconditional, conditional and cash-for-work schemes, employment guarantee, public works schemes, nutrition schemes, and so on. There are many instant where social protection programmes have reached a substantial proportion of the poor, leading to improvement in social and welfare outcomes of the poor and vulnerable communities. While targeting core development and livelihood improvement, these social protection programs increasingly also play a determining role in outcomes related to women’s empowerment, altering role and relationship of men and women in the society, and development pathway of men and women and other vulnerable groups, in general. The main purpose of this paper to review and synthesis on concept, methodology, and analytical tools and techniques on assessment of gender implications of large scale social protection programs. In particular, we discuss these issues in context of the Mahatma Gan...
IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, 2016
In the light of the rapid decline in the irrigation water potential and increasing demand for wat... more In the light of the rapid decline in the irrigation water potential and increasing demand for water from different sectors in India, there is a need of the emergence of small-scale irrigation technology to conserve scarce water resources. Drip irrigation is one such technology that has been introduced to reduce water consumption in the agriculture sector, leading to sustainability of this sector. It allows farmers to cultivate crops without moisture stress even under water-scarce conditions, thereby increasing farm productivity. Earlier studies have analyzed the economics of drip irrigation in the case of high-value crops, which are mostly cultivated by rich farmers. Drip irrigation is also suitable for cultivating vegetable crops that are mostly cultivated by small farmers. However, in the Indian context, research on the effectiveness of drip irrigation is rare for these crops. We show that farmers cultivating green chilli could reduce the use of water by about two-thirds and incre...
Agricultural Economics Research Review, 2015
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) was launched by the Govern... more Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (MGNREGP) was launched by the Government of India to serve many objectives including empowerment of women and marginalized communities of the society and reducing the ever-increasing flow of rural labour to urban centres. This paper has looked into the extent of participation of male and female workers, marginalized sections of the society and workers of different age groups in MGNREGP, by conducting a study in Markabbinahalli village of Bijapur district in Karnataka, characterized with distinct migration pattern, during the agricultural year 2012-13. Both primary and secondary data were used in the study. Analytical tools used were z-test, t-test, Fisher's Exact Probability Test and one way ANOVA. The study has found no bias of cast, gender and age in providing employment to the participants of programme. The female workers received gainful employment in the programme. The higher non-farm wage rates constrained MGNREGP in reducing migration of workers to urban centres in the study village. The programme empowered the women workers, at least on a modest scale.
This paper evaluates the livelihoods impacts of farmers field school (FFS) in the Tsunamiaffected... more This paper evaluates the livelihoods impacts of farmers field school (FFS) in the Tsunamiaffected communities in Aceh. Using techniques of participatory approach, eight units of FFS on chili were evaluated in July-August 2009. Three major tools used for the impact evaluation purpose are focus group discussion, impact assessment on five categories of livelihood capitals, and scoring of changes (impacts) on key aspect of chili cultivation and farmers knowledge. For this purpose, “before and after” method of impact assessment framework was used. The results indicate that FFS has favorably affected five assets (capitals) of farmers’ livelihood: physical, financial, human, social, and natural capitals. Several negative impacts on such capitals are also identified, but overall, positive impacts of FFS on all capitals offset the negative impacts. FFS also has empowered individual farmers, and the farming communities. Farmers reported that there is an overall improvement in farming knowledg...
India is a major grower and producer of oilseeds as well as a major importer of vegetable oils, r... more India is a major grower and producer of oilseeds as well as a major importer of vegetable oils, ranks fourth among the countries in oilseed economy, next to USA, China and Brazil spending USD 10 billion in 2012-13. Nearly 14 million farmers are involved in oilseed production, mostly in arid and semi-arid regions of the country, whose capacity to adopt modern technology are constrained by poor resource base. This is coupled with aberration in monsoon and market economy presents a formidable challenge to make oilseed production sustainable in the long run. In order to curtail the growing vegetable oil import bills and increase the production and productivity of oilseeds, the Technology Mission on Oilseeds (TMO) was initiated in 1986 with the following objectives; (i) self-reliance in edible oils (ii) reduce imports almost to zero (iii) raise oilseeds production to 18 million tonnes (mt) by 1989-90 and 26 mt of oilseeds and produce 8 mt of vegetable oil by 2000 AD. However, the TMO had...
The Government of India created a historic Act, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guar... more The Government of India created a historic Act, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005, to address the twin challenges of reducing Poverty and Creating Employment, which guarantees employment of every rural household of the country for 100 days, the largest employment-generating programme in the world, ensuring the right to work This paper focuses on an in-depth primary survey in two villages in Prakasham district of Andhra Pradesh, and evaluation of the effectiveness of MGNREGS in creating individual and community level assets, and the financial and economic sustainability of these assets created under the programme in the selected study sites. The study finds that participants spent the additional wage earnings from MGNREGS mostly on procurement of the basic household materials, food security by purchasing of food items required for the family, and livelihood intervention as few able to purchase buffalos from the saving out of MGNREGS work. Some ...
Research Papers in Economics, 2016
This paper is part of ICRISAT Economics Discussion paper series. This series disseminates the fin... more This paper is part of ICRISAT Economics Discussion paper series. This series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about a wide array of issues in the area of agriculture for development. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome and should be addressed to the author whose contact details can be found at the bottom of the cover page. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and its affiliated organizations. The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (lCRISAT) is a non-profit, non-political organization that conducts agricultural research for development in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa with a wide array of partners throughout the world. Covering 6.5 million square kilometers of land in 55 countries, the semi-arid tropics have over 2 billion people, of who 644 million are the poorest of the poor. ICRISAT innovations help the dryland poor move from poverty to prosperity by harnessing markets while managing risksa strategy called Inclusive Market-Oriented development (lMOD). ICRISAT is headquartered in Patancheru near Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, with two regional hubs and five country offices in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a member of the CGIAR Consortium. www.icrisat.org CGIAR is a global agriculture research partnership for a food secure future. Its science is carried out by 15 research Centers who are members of the CGIAR Consortium in collaboration with hundreds of partner organizations. www.cgiar.org This work has been undertaken as part of the Assessment of Economic Impacts of MGNREGA in Selected Two Villages of Karnataka State using Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) ICRISAT -Socioeconomics Discussion Paper Series 2
Social Science Research Network, Sep 8, 2017
This study reviews the evolution of tractor use in India in the past few decades, and supplements... more This study reviews the evolution of tractor use in India in the past few decades, and supplements this with a panel model analysis using factors associated with state-level tractor density growth. Growth in tractor use in India, unlike that in the United States and Japan, has occurred at relatively low wage rates and with a substantial majority of the workforce remaining in the agricultural sector. Considerable growth in domestic manufacturing has contributed to growth in tractor densities. Tractor density across the 14 major states in India between 1982 and 2012 was positively affected by income per capita, cropping intensity, and the average size of farmland holdings. Tractor intensity grew at a fast pace even in low-wage regions of India, indicating that relatively lower labor wages might not have been a binding factor for diffusion of farm machinery and tractors among smallholding farmers in India.Non-PRIFPRI1; C Improving markets and trade; D Transforming AgricultureDSGD; SA
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Papers by Madhusudan Bhattarai