This issue presents six papers covering various issues relating to agriculture and its allied activities such as consumer preferences for integrated pest management produce, demand system of food, opportunities and constraints of food processing, rural credit and market intervention, income diversification in rural households, and small farm swidden system.

Food safety has become one of the important issues for consumers, especially with regard to the usage of pesticide. The first paper, “Consumer Preferences in United States for Integrated Pest Management Produce: an Econometric Analysis”, by Ramu Govindasamy and Venkata S Puduri, articulates that the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been receiving immense response from both the consumers and producers due to its cost effectiveness and reduced risk from pesticide usage. It analyzes the determinants such as demographic and behavioral variables in a logit framework to examine the preference of consumer demand for IPM produce. The results of this study indicate that about 32% of the respondents would like to buy the IPM produce. This study also identifies certain segments of population who are aware of the IPM produce and are willing to buy IPM products.

The second paper, “A Complete Demand System of Food in Malaysia”, by Tey Yeong Sheng, Mad Nasir Shamsudin, Zainalabidin Mohamed, Amin Mahir Abdullah and Alias Radam, reveals that with significant achievement in the Malaysian economy, people are becoming wealthier and food consumption is undergoing transitional changes. Against this backdrop, the present study examines the complete demand pattern of food in Malaysia. The empirical results show that the demand for all foods in response to the income is relatively positive; with expenditure elasticities of meat, fruits, vegetables, sugar and beverages and other foods being elastic. The findings conclude that the Malaysian food consumption pattern is moving the country towards higher value food products as the per capita income increases.

In the third paper, “Food Processing in India: Opportunities and Constraints”, Khushdeep Dharni and Sonika Sharma express that for providing remunerative prices to the agricultural produce, it is important that the production advantage available to India is transformed into processing advantage. The Indian food industry has no dearth of market opportunities with regard to thriving domestic consumption and new avenues of foreign demand. This paper articulates that though food processing maintains a significant link between the agricultural and industrial sectors, the scale of operations along with the fragmented supply chain is the major hurdle in the path of speedy growth of food processing in India. Concentration at the level of production, processing and retailing are the important requirements for the rapid development of this sector. The Government of India has identified food processing sector as the sunrise sector and a number of proposals are being put in place for the promotion of primary as well as secondary processing. For an unhindered growth of this sector in India, there is an immense need to address the demand and supply constraints of food processing.

The fourth paper, “Rural Credit, Market Reform and Interventionist Institutions: A Micro Study of West Bengal”, by Sudipta Bhattacharyya, analyzes some policy issues on rural credit against the backdrop of the IMF-World Bank directed market economic reform that the Indian agriculture witnessed during the 1990s. Following the recommendations of the committees appointed by the Government of India for liberalization of rural credit, the share of priority sector and agriculture was cut down. Against this backdrop, the primary study is conducted in two agro-ecological regions of West Bengal. The central hypothesis of the market reformers that there must be a negative association between default of credit and the ascending status of households has not been approved by the findings of the study. It is also evident that a greater share of the households is involved with the IRDP loan, while a comparatively lower share of households is involved with the crop loan. However, the study concludes that poor people themselves formed credit cooperatives, though this initiative is not integrated with any formal network.

The fifth paper, “Income Diversification in Rural Households: Measurement and Determinants”, by P S Sujithkumar, is based on the primary data collected from three villages of K V Kuppam Block in the Vellore district of Tamil Nadu. It attempts to measure the income diversification among different sections of rural households. It is argued that there is a significant difference in the income diversification among different groups of rural households in terms of their major source of income, total income, per capita income and the size of landholdings. But the difference in income diversification is not significant with respect to the community they belong; however, assets such as area under cultivation and number of cattle determine income diversification.

The last paper, “Efficiency of the Small Farm Swidden System: Cases from Orissa”, by Amalendu Jyotishi, deals with Swidden, one of the most primitive forms of agriculture popularly known as shifting cultivation and slash-and-burn agriculture that involves rotation of field where the cropping period usually lies with an extended fallow period in the crop fallow cycle. This study, based on cases from Orissa identifies the level of efficiency in swidden. It is evident that a higher technical efficiency in swidden shows productive efficiency of this farming practice; the efficiency of swidden is not only high, but also its consistency across different sizes of households is remarkable. Thus, this system holds better possibility because of its extension among almost all the households in the villages considered for this study, whereas, it is not so in the case of other forms of land use. It concludes that from a policy perspective, the best way to deal with the shifting cultivators of Orissa is to promote and enhance productive efficiency of swidden and the associated forms of agriculture.

- L Krishna Veni
Consulting Editor