Events of IGC
Title: IGC India Research Conference: Agricultural Practices and Productivity – Evidence from India
Panellists: Andre Joshua Nickow (Northwestern University), Dipak Kumar Singh (Government of Bihar), Julieta Caunedo (Cornell), Meeta Keswani Mehra (Jawaharlal Nehru University), N Saravana Kumar (Government of Bihar) and Pronab Sen (International Growth Centre, India)
Date and Time: 17th June 2021 at 16.30 to 18.00 (IST)
Zoom Link for Registration: Registration Link
Brief: Agriculture remains central for the lives of a large portion of the world population in developing countries, employing nearly 800 million people in South Asia alone (World Bank, 2015). In Bihar alone, nearly 80% of the workforce is employed in agriculture and it is critical to address the growing concerns around fragmented landholdings, smaller farm sizes, land rights and governance, climate change, and farm mechanization which has significant implications for agricultural productivity. Most farmers in India don’t have access to technology-driven tools and practices. The technology is either expensive or can’t be made available in rural areas because of logistics challenges. With all these, stagnating agricultural productivity has prevented transformational development to livelihoods of smallholder farmers. But to address the issue, farm mechanization is also of first-order importance to Indian policy makers. The Bihar state government has engaged in a large-scale program to subsidize equipment purchases, and rentals.
Agriculture and its allied sectors are the source of livelihood for more than half of the population in India and it is critical to address any barriers or challenges which have significant implications for agricultural productivity, especially in poorer states such as Bihar. IGC India has aimed to generate new evidence, in the context of India, by exploring key areas around land e-governance, farm mechanization and agricultural adaptation to climate change to understand the impact on agricultural productivity.