SUJAN PIYA'S BLOG

IFPRI has recently published Global Hunger Index The challenge of hunger: Taming price spikes and excessive food price volatility A very important book from IFPRI. It deals about why price hike in food, what are the effects and how to tackle it. Following is the pdf link http://www.ifpri.org/publication/2011-global-hunger-index

Sources of Agricultural Productivity in Low and Lower Middle Income Countries Sujan PIYA 1) and Akira KIMINAMI 2) 1) Corresponding Author, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo 2) Professor, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo (Received February 18, 2010) (Accepted December 5, 2010) Abstract Assessing and quantifying the sources of agricultural productivity across developing countries is the prime objective of this paper. Thirty-one low and lower middle income countries from the Asian and African continents were selected for the study. The results show that variations in land productivity are well explained by variations in labor and fertilizer resources. However, variations in tractor and livestock inputs have low impacts on the performance of land productivity. The average annual malmquist factor productivity index is positive. Factor productivit...

The world’s population will grow from almost 7 billion now to over 9 billion in 2050. A special report on feeding the world from Economist http://www.economist.com/node/18200618  

1. Evaluating the impact of geographic concentration on Nepalese agricultural export http://sae.sagepub.com/content/11/2/207.abstract Abstract: This study observed and analyzed the behaviour of Nepalese agricultural export using vector error correction model (VECM). The first part of the analysis focused on the dynamic relationship among agricultural export, geographic concentration and total agricultural production. Results of the study revealed that Nepalese agricultural export was very much dependent on the Indian markets and had positive relation with the geographic concentration index in the long run. The significant and higher error correction term indicated that the short-run fluctuations in geographic concentration and agricultural production were promptly adjusted to its long-run trend. The long-run effect of agricultural production increment on export was pos...

1. to calculate water productivity- http://save-the-rain.com/world-bank/ 2. land use calculator- http://www.lianpinkoh.com/luc/ 3. Immigrants moving money- http://www.torre.nl/migrantsmovingmoney/

Image via Wikipedia Treadle Pump - Micro irrigation technology - TP is basically an appropriate technology in rural areas where farm holdings are very small. Technology should be viable in terms of socio-ecoomic features of the farm household. Generally, the top down approach of government without concerning micro level intricacies hardly able to realize the targeted impact. Small farmers means- they have small investment capacity their risk bearing capacity is very weak they live in geographically difficult area less educated poor access to information   poor access to market Thus, agricultural development programs should consider the real situation of rural farm household under which they are operating the farm business. R ural development programs should be compatible in terms of farmers physical and human resource endowments. The most important part is their institutional capacity build-up. Only focusing on commodity does ...