Indian Agriculture: Performance, Growth and Challenges

This volume examines the transitions in Indian agriculture since the 1980s, and emphasizes upon the role of neoliberal policies and their impact. The essays presented here deal with a range of pertinent and contemporary issues, including global food security, livelihoods of agricultural labourers, and public and private investment. These weave together glimpses of the impasse faced by petty commodity producers (marginal and small farmers) and their subsequent economic distress and social exclusion. Comprehensive in analysis, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of agricultural economics, political economy, political science and public policy.

Parmod Kumar is Professor and Head, Agricultural Development and Rural Transformation Centre, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. He has authored many research volumes and articles in national and international journals. He leads several research projects sponsored by the Government of India and international organizations. He is the editor of the Journal of Social and Economic Development and part of the editorial board of Indian Journal of Agricultural Marketing and Agricultural Situation in India. He was conferred the IDRC India Social Science Research Award for his work on the public distribution system.

S. Mohanakumar is Associate Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur (IDSJ), Rajasthan, India. Previously he worked as Scientist in the Economics Research Division of the Rubber Research Institute of India, Kottayam, Kerala, under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India. He has taught decentralised planning and development at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) in Thrissur, Kerala. He is also a social activist and is currently active in the environmental movement against granite quarrying at Mookkunnimala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He writes extensively on the political economy of agriculture, development, wage labour and related issues.