P. Venkatesh

Rice Residue Burning in Punjab: Situation and Solution

Intensive cultivation has contributed immensely to the overall development of Punjab but at the cost of environmental sustainability. Residue generated from rice cultivation is neither used as animal feed nor farmers have enough time to collect it. In order to get rid of the residue farmers burn nearly 12–13 Mt rice straw every year. This generates average 11, 606 gG of CO2 every year, which amount to

Relationship between Food Production and Consumption Diversity in India – Empirical Evidences from Cross Section Analysis

203 million in terms of carbon credit. Farmer still burns rice residue as they do not consider indirect cost of environmental degradation and nutrient loss. Satellite images show that fire incident mostly occurs during last days of October and the first week of November. All legal, technical, institutional and R&D stakeholders must be brought on a common platform to achieve better results.

Impact of Plant Variety Protection on Indian Seed Industry

This study has examined (i) the food production and consumption diversity across the states, (ii) trends in food consumption and nutritional intake and changes in related socio-economic characteristics, and (iii) relationship between consumption diversity and production diversity along with other major determinants. The data on production, consumption, and other socio-economic factors have been collected from various government published sources for the past two decades (1990–2010). The study has revealed that per-capita consumption has decreased in cereals and is stagnant in pulses, and has doubled in edible oils, vegetables, eggs, fish and meat during 1993–94 to 2011–12. It has reflected the nutritional intake wherein calorie and protein intake has declined, fat intake has increased during this period. Simultaneously, a significant growth has been observed in per-capita income and availability of food commodities along with rapid urbanization. The multivariate regression analysis of 28 states has suggested that dietary diversity significantly increases with production diversity and per-capita income and is significantly higher in other states vis-a-vis north-eastern states. A significant non-linear relationship has been observed between dietary diversity and literacy. The study has highlighted a significant impact of local production diversity on consumption pattern and therefore, policies should target the diversification of agricultural production, particularly in the north-eastern states to bring out dietary diversity and desired nutritional outcome.