Indian Agricultural Sector Research Articles

Assessment of adaptive capacity and adaptation to climate change in the farming households of Eastern Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, India

The Indian agricultural sector is highly vulnerable to climate change. Hence, the adoption of appropriate adaptation measures by the farmers is crucial for reducing the adverse effects, and it is expected that farmers with higher adaptive capacity would be better equipped to respond to the rapidly changing climatic conditions. Therefore, understanding the factors that are likely to influence farmers’ adaptive capacity is critical for efficiently targeting adaptation and capacity-building initiatives. Based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), this study explored farming households’ adaptive capacity in three climatic hazard-prone villages of the Eastern Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, India. The Analytical Hierarchy Process was used to assign weights to the indicators under the SLF, and the consistency ratio was 0.04, indicating the adequacy of the derived weights for assessing adaptive capacity. The findings showed that only 11.41 percent of households had a high adaptive capacity, whereas 60.40 and 28.19 percent had moderate and low adaptive capacity, respectively. It is found that a large number of households having a low adaptive capacity left their land as fallow. While the majority of households with moderate and high adaptive capacity diversified their farming systems or switched from traditional staple cereals to less water-intensive cash crops. The differences in natural, physical, and financial capital are mainly responsible for the differential adaptive capacity among the farming households in this region. However, there were considerable differences among the villages in terms of asset distribution. Therefore, sustainable adaptive capacity-driven policy initiatives to enable efficient adaptation and agrarian welfare are of paramount importance in this region.

AgriWealth: IoT based farming system

The agricultural sector in India accounts for a significant part of the country's GDP and is the primary income source for many farmers in rural areas. While it creates employment opportunities and offers food security for the entire nation, the lack of infrastructure and resources might be limiting its potential to thrive further. One of the aspects addressed in this paper is low yield production. With the aid of a sensor-based irrigation model, data is collected and analyzed in the cloud to enable real-time monitoring. It is then integrated with an Android application for displaying results in an user-friendly interface. Through the application, farmers can control the farm manually, or with a timer in minutes. The Machine Learning model predicts the suitable crops, in accordance with varying weather parameters. The application has a classified portal for farmers and customers to buy/sell directly, eliminating any involvement of mediators. One of the novelties in this research includes monitoring/controlling farm equipment and predicting field crops from a locally installed LCD display and keypad present in farmer's respective homes. The proposed work aims to create an energy-efficient, user-friendly framework for the agricultural workforce, yielding better crop production, improving farmers' living standards, and contributing effectively to the nation's economic growth. The prototype shows a reduction of water usage in fields by more than 60%. In order to incorporate the model with the best behavior in Android Application, different Machine Learning algorithms have been studied, among which Random Forest has been selected with a test accuracy of 91.59%.

Agri-Startpus in India- Promoting Innovation

After seventy years of Independence we cannot say that India is not an agro based country. The finest Performance of Indian Agriculture during lockdown period and during the spread of pandemic, is a jewel in the crown. Present research paper discuss about the existing status and the key trends prevailing in Indian Agriculture. This paper also discuss about the conducive environment for start-ups in Agriculture sector in India. This will be explain with the help of various examples of agro- start-ups in India and their functioning, what are the basic challenges these start-up companies have to be faced? And the initiative taken by government to remove those challenges and make the working environment healthy.

Annual Intercrops: An Alternative Pathway for Sustainable Horticultural Production

The greatest challenge to the agriculture in the years to come is to provide sufficient food to growing population in order to fight with hunger and malnutrition. We will have to feed more people with limited water resources, frequent droughts, degrading lands and difficult access to energy. Past strategy for development of the agricultural sector in India has focused primarily on raising agricultural output and improving food security. The Doubling Famer’s Income (DFI) strategy as recommended by the Committee include seven sources of income growth viz., improvement in crop productivity, increase in the cropping intensity, enhancement in livestock productivity, resource use efficiency, diversification towards high value crops, improvement in real prices received by farmers and shift from farm to non-farm occupations. Intercropping ensures efficient resource and space utilization including upgrading of soil and orchard nutrient status. So, intercropping has been employed with the main objective of proper utilization of resources under subsistence farming where the production of sufficient food grain is a great challenge. The outcomes of various intercropping practices confirm that vegetable and pulses crops are economically and ecologically most suitable and viable intercrops for fruit crops at early phase of growth. Once bearing starts, there is need of management of cultural practices adapted for intercrops with the requirements of fruit trees. So that productivity of fruit plants will not be decreased.

Indian agriculture sector: impacts from COVID-19

Indian agriculture sector: impacts from COVID-19

Using IOT to Improve Indian Agriculture

The use of Internet of Things (IoT) may provide the boost which is required to improve the productivity of Indian agriculture system which is well below the world average and may help in improving the income and conditions of Indian farmer. The present paper presents the efforts done by the researchers in this direction to promote the use of Information technology in general and IoT in particular in Indian agriculture sector. The areas in which IoT helps are, robotics, decision support systems, smart irrigation, precision farming, use of social media for the benefit of Indian farmers. The use of agent based systems in Indian Agriculture scenario has also been discussed in this paper.

A Review on Policy Gaps of Agriculture Research and Development (R&D) in India and Their Effect on Agriculture Stakeholders

Purpose: An impressive stride in the agriculture sector in India after green revolution from a food deficient to food surplus country is attributed to the well-established infrastructure and contribution of various farm families in this sector. In the current scenario, various cons of food surplus and other stagnation issues of the policies need to be contemplated. The various policy reforms should inculcate well utilization of agriculture investment funds, methodologies to allow increments in farmer’s income to prevent their suicidal rates, incentives and requirements for private R&D investment in agriculture while maintaining the sustainable development goal of India. A complete transparent paradigm approach to be followed by the central, state governments and private sectors for fostering agriculture growth is analyzed in this review. The impetus behind the lack of agriculture growth in spite of tremendous productivity measures adopted by farmers, policy makers; public and private investment lies in lacking of an appropriate infrastructure as per current need and demand. It is imperative to foster paradigm protocol in agriculture with articulate government intermediaries to prevent monopoly of a particular authority in due course of time. It develops spurring behavior among stakeholders to form a consortium to revitalize the complete agriculture R&D to obviate the bottle necks hampering agriculture proliferation. Design: The present review highlights the mandatory need in the current scenario to review the agriculture research and development policies and desired amendments as per the needs of the associated stake holders. Paper Type: Review article

Rheological analysis of rice husk-starch suspended in water for sustainable agriculture application

Agriculture usage is one of the major consumers of freshwater resources, however the increasing over dependency on water resources needs effective water management techniques. Water scarcity is one of the main problems in agriculture sector of India where farmers need solution for effective water management with minimum initial cost and which can be implemented with traditional methods. In this study, rheological analysis of rice husk and starch suspended in water are experimentally evaluated. Rice husk was powdered for maximum particle size of 180 µm. Study has measured the viscosity for different shear rate in the range of 0.09–1500 s−1. To understand the effect of temperature study was conducted at 30 °C and 80 °C. The study is performed using the rheometer (RheolabQC), which gives the relationship between the different fluid properties at different temperatures and shear rate. Experimental study was conducted on samples containing various proportions of rice husk and corn starch in water. All the samples at 30 °C shows shear thinning behavior except starch sample, whereas at 80 °C starch also shown shear thinning behavior. Viscosity of some samples increases with increase in temperature. At 30 °C sample containing 7gm rice husk powder and 3 gm starch, shows reduction in viscosity with increase in shear rate. The results are useful to control flow rate of water along with nutrition enrichment of the soil.

Modeling the impact of climatic and non-climatic factors on cereal production: evidence from Indian agricultural sector.

The underpinned study examines the effects of climatic and non-climatic factors on Indian agriculture, cereal production, and yield using the country-level time series data of 1965-2015. With the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach, the long-term equilibrium association among the variables has been explored. The results reveal that climatic factors like CO2 emissions and temperature adversely affect agricultural output, while rainfall positively affects it. Likewise, non-climatic factors, including energy used, financial development, and labor force, affect agricultural production positively in the long run. The estimated long-run results further demonstrate that CO2 emissions and rainfall positively affect both cereal production and yield, while temperature adversely affects them. The results exhibit that the cereal cropped area, energy used, financial development, and labor force significantly and positively impact the long-run cereal production and yield. Finally, pairwise Granger causality test confirmed that both climatic and non-climatic factors are significantly influencing agriculture and cereal production in India. Based on these results, policymakers and governmental institutions should formulate coherent adaptation measures and mitigation policies to tackle the adverse climate change effects on agriculture and its production of cereals.

Debates on agricultural loan waiver schemes in India: myths and realities

ABSTRACT The agriculture sector in India is marred with several problems, which have resulted in farmers’ distress. To address the distress of the farmers, both Central and State Governments of India implemented agricultural debt waiver schemes (ADWRSs) as major policy interventions in recent years. These schemes differ in terms of coverage of the farmers and lending agencies. However, all of them aim to benefit millions of small and marginal farmers of India. The implication and evaluation of these schemes has invited serious criticisms from both policy makers and researchers. It is true that these schemes have created fiscal pressure on the implementing governments. In addition, some degree of corruption has become an integral part of the schemes. However, given the extent of the indebtedness of the farmers, waivers may also be crucial as a temporary measure to mitigate agricultural distress. This paper explores the debate and examines the criticism of the ADWRSs from various quarters. We have found that the majority of arguments against the debt waiver schemes widely accepted amongst bankers, policy makers and even economists are based on perceptions and are not backed by sound economic logic and analysis.

Fair Trade Alliance and its Pertinence in the Indian Scenario

The account of Indian agriculture dates back to Indus Valley Civilization. As per Indian Agriculture and Allied Industries Industry Report 2020, Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for 58 per cent of India’s population with significant contribution to Indian GDP, Gross Value Added (GVA) growth with 4 Per cent by agriculture, forestry, and fishing was estimated to be Rs 19.48 lakh crore (US$ 276.37 billion) in FY20(PE). The Indian food processing industry accounts for 32 per cent of the country’s total food market, one of the largest industries in India, and is ranked fifth in terms of production, consumption, export, and expected growth. The Indian agriculture sector is predominately unorganized and dominated by players from the unorganized sector with the exploitation of producers by market participants. The current paper tries to study the prospects of Fairtrade practice in Kerala by making a critical analysis of the problems and prospects of the Fair trade practices in Kerala. Fair trade in border sense tries to address the concerns of producers through structured arrangements designed to help producers in emerging countries attain sustainable and equitable trade relationships through an organised set of practices. Fair trade advocates for the Premium price, Better working, socio, and economic and environmental standards for producers. FTAK commenced in 2006, small farmers’ organization located in South India that grows coffee, cashew nuts, and tropical spices. Incorporated with objectives enabling farmers to tap global markets and enhance income through Fairtrade which tries to surpass the upcoming challenges of food security, the appropriation/utilization of rural land, the effects of pests and disease on their livelihoods, destruction of crops by wildlife, and the unwillingness of the younger generation to continue with agriculture. FTAK tries to preserve the historical legacy of Indian cash crops by creating sustainable livelihood for producers engaged in fair trade and help to calibrate the food security for a growing population.

Segmenting Agri-Input Market in Odisha

There has been a significant transformation in social, physical and economic infrastructure. This has consequently changed the attitude and behavior of consumers/farmers. Farmers have shifted substantially toward consumerism, particularly over the past decade. This drastic and rapid change in the Indian agriculture sector has compelled agribusiness firms to continually adapt their marketing strategies to add & retain customers and increase the customer lifetime value. To maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of their market interventions, marketers have been segmenting their customers in numerous ways with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Our study proposes and evaluates a new approach to agri-input market segmentation based on the farmer buying behavior - Brand loyalty, price sensitivity and response to market interventions. The study included farmers (marginal, small, medium and large) from different social, geographical and agro-climatic regions. The findings of the study would useful for the agri-input suppliers/marketers for developing better marketing mix strategies for different conditions of market and production orientations.

​​Indian Agricultural Sector Present and Post Pandemic Condition

The COVID-19 influenced global pandemic severely affected the market of small industries and had a deep impact on the agri economic of the farmer community across the globe. The main objective of this article is to emphasize on the influence of global pandemic with agriculture and food sector. The lockdown made ambivalent in agriculture, the point of concern is that, at the first phase of lockdown in India, Rabi crops are at harvest stage, due to the lockdown the breakdown of supply chain has been interrupted and left a noticeable impact on the marketability of agriculture crops even though it has registered moderate growth in terms of yield. At present globally mankind is experiencing the waves of pandemic and it caused significant loss to the yield of crops. If the situation continuous, the world is going to experience the hunger deaths. To overcome the issue discussed, agriculture sector needs to adapt new technologies, right from the cultivation, harvest and supply chain with marketing to bring the new normal life back to mankind. This is the right time to have transition from conventional agri practices to the technology invented smart agriculture. Indian agriculture sector should adapt and the former community need to be educated in applying ICT based smart agriculture practices such as utilization of automated machinery, AI (artificial intelligence) enabled cultivation methods, Internet of Things (IoT) and Wireless Sensor Networks based monitoring and maintenance of the agriculture practice The application ICTs methods in agriculture practices facilitate to choose good quality seeds, optimum quantity of manures required for the enhanced crop yield, and direct monetary of the agriculture firm in order to show resilience to the global pandemic impact on agriculture sector. In the present review authors emphasised on various smart agriculture methods and their importance in promoting the agriculture practice as profitable venture and also how this ICT methods helps the sector to overcome the impact of global pandemic and to bring back the new normal life.

IOT BASED SMART AGRICULTURAL MONITORING SYSTEM

Agriculture is one of the important sectors contributing to the Indian economy. Agriculture sector is providing the work to more than 60% people in India. With developments in electronics and the microcontroller based systems, many applications are developed by the researchers and designers to perform the agriculture operations. Internet of Things (IoT) has opened doors of opportunities to design agriculture systems with accuracy of performing task. Arduino based systems are reliable and can be used widely for agriculture applications. Authors have proposed the implementation of Arduino based IoT system for agriculture monitoring. The parameters monitored are moisture, humidity, temperature, flow etc. The hardware prototype is developed by the authors and the system is found suitable to develop for Indian agriculture sector.

IoT in Agriculture

The agriculture sector in India is facing a lot of problems due to lack of water supply, instability of monsoon primitive farming techniques. But since a few years the farming has undergone tremendous changes, and is becoming more technology driven, by adopting various smart agriculture techniques, farmers have obtained greater control over the process of growing crops. Therefore making agriculture more efficient and predictable. In this research paper, we will explore the IoT techniques that can be employ ed in agriculture and examine their benefits.

Predictive model construction for prediction of soil fertility using decision tree machine learning algorithm

Agriculture sector is recognized as the backbone of the Indian economy that plays a crucial role in the growth of the nation’s economy. It imparts on weather and other environmental aspects. Some of the factors on which agriculture is reliant are Soil, climate, flooding, fertilizers, temperature, precipitation, crops, insecticides, and herb. The soil fertility is dependent on these factors and hence difficult to predict. However, the Agriculture sector in India is facing the severe problem of increasing crop productivity. Farmers lack the essential knowledge of nutrient content of the soil, selection of crop best suited for the soil and they also lack efficient methods for predicting crop well in advance so that appropriate methods have been used to improve crop productivity. This paper presents different Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms such as Decision tree, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) to predict the fertility of soil based on macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients status found in the dataset. Supervised Machine Learning algorithms are applied on the training dataset and are tested with the test dataset, and the implementation of these algorithms is done using R Tool. The performance analysis of these algorithms is done using different evaluation metrics like mean absolute error, cross-validation, and accuracy. Result analysis shows that the Decision tree is produced the best accuracy of 99% with a very less mean square error (MSE) rate.

The Response of Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) due to the Impact of Pandemic COVID-19 on Indian Agriculture Sector

India is an agricultural country and a core source of income for the world population. Indian economy is greatly depending on agriculture that is decrease day by day due to pandemic COVID-19. India is a major exporter of many crop foods. India, Thailand, and Vietnam are the major exports of rice if these stopped exports it reduces the economy up to 15%. A related circumstance is built up with diverse yields too like wheat, sunflower whose fare has been stationary by Kazakhstan, Serbia individually. In India, the end of April is the main source of income to farmers because they sell their rabi crops (wheat, mustard, maize, lentil, chilies, gram, tomatoes) in the market drastically decreases of CFPI may lead to the distress of Indian agricultural economy. The change over time in the price of options on wheat futures reveals increased price volatility in response to growing uncertainty about the COVID-19 impacts.

Artificial intelligence and carbon footprints: Roadmap for Indian agriculture

AbstractArtificial intelligence technology in the agricultural sector can reduce carbon emissions from agrarian activities and revitalize the whole industry. The Indian agricultural sector has become costly, time‐consuming, and outdated owing to the global warming process. The deployment of AI technology in Indian agriculture is still a distant dream, given the peculiarities like small‐size farms, traditional farming methods, lack of credit, storage facilities, and the decision maker's risk‐seeking attitude. AI solutions need to be delivered at the farmers' doorstep in their local language, with proper training, input support, and in collective/cooperative manner for realizing sustainable and green agriculture.

Critical Study of Impact of Quantifiable Variables on the Yield Per Hectare in The Indian Agricultural Sector

Critical Study of Impact of Quantifiable Variables on the Yield Per Hectare in The Indian Agricultural Sector

Demand prognosis of industry 4.0 to agriculture sector in India

The objective of this study is to evaluate areas of applicability of Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to the Agriculture sector in India and how significant benefits can be delivered to the farmers by focusing on selected use cases. Agriculture has been the backbone of Indian economy for centuries, however, its contribution to the India’s economy, measured as a per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has declined over the last decade. Farm productivity has only marginally improved during this timeframe. At the same time, a surge in expected demand for food grains is expected, posing a significant challenge to the demand-supply parity. To solve this conundrum, 4IR Technologies as the umbrella framework comprising of cognitive internet of things (IoT), big data analytics, drones/spatial technologies and digital user experience, were evaluated in this research study. A baseline assessment of the digital use cases of 4IR Technologies that have already been leveraged in India was conducted. The list of these digital use cases was then enhanced and prioritized using Delphi technique, considering economic value of the use cases to the Indian farmers as well as ease of their implementation.