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India imports more from Africa than Africa does from India. A large share of Indian imports from Africa are oil and minerals. However, the India-Africa relations in food and agriculture are already important but have potentials for expansion. For complex reasons Africa had no transformation of its agriculture comparable to India's during its erstwhile Green Revolution in the 1960s and 70s. The African continent and the Indian Subcontinent still have a lot to learn from each other, especially as food systems and food value chains are modernizing and technologies in agriculture and food sectors are spreading. This paper looks at historical ties between India and Africa. It identifies trade and investment patterns in recent decades and describes the collaborations between India and several African countries in the field of agriculture. Finally, we point at potential areas for mutual cooperation in agriculture of the two regions in the future.

India imports more from Africa than Africa does from India. A large share of Indian imports from Africa are oil and minerals. However, the India – Africa relations in food and agriculture are already important but have potentials for expansion. For complex reasons Africa had no transformation of its agriculture comparable to India's during its erstwhile Green Revolution in the 1960s and 70s.The African continent and the Indian Subcontinent still have a lot to learn from each other, especially as food systems and food value chains are modernizing and technologies in agriculture and food sectors are spreading. This paper looks at historical ties between India and Africa. It identifies trade and investment patterns in recent decades, and describes the collaborations between India and several African countries in the field of agriculture. Finally, we point at potential areas for mutual cooperation in agriculture of the two regions in the future.

Our analysis shows that farm mechanization in India, especially the use of tractors, has made commendable progress. With major policy changes, entry of private farm machinery manufacturing companies and foreign collaborations, farm power availability increased from 0.25 kilowatt per hectare (kW/ha) in 1951 to 2.02 kW/ha in 2017. Furthermore, the contribution of mechanized sources to farm power increased from some 3 percent in 1951 to 88 percent in 2013-14, replacing human and draught power. In addition, the production of tractors increased significantly from a meager 880 units in 1951 to about 900,000 units in 2019. This has transformed India from being a net importer of tractors through the 1960s and 1970s to being an exporter of tractors, exporting some 92,000 units in 2019. In terms of inclusiveness, although larger farms are more mechanized, the Input Census data (2011-12) reveals that even in the category of small and marginal holdings (less than 2 ha), an average of roughly 44 percent of farmers use farm machinery (e.g., tractors, diesel engine pump sets, electric pump sets and power tillers). This is a good achievement, but further improvements are always possible and major attempts in this direction are already underway with heavy policy support through Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs). However, the fact that farm machinery is expensive also raises concerns over whether it is financially viable and sustainable to own and use on smallholder farms. It is therefore important to look at unfolding innovations providing farm machinery services through 'CHCs' and 'Uberization' models. These innovations make farm machinery and equipments perfectly divisible as a service to all classes of farmers at the doorstep at affordable cost on a 'pay per use' basis. This seems to be the future of farm machinery usage in India, if it is developed as a sustainable business model with due support of policy and finance.

Indian agriculture is dominated by smallholders. With an average holding size of just 1.08 ha (in 2015-16), and 86 percent of holdings being of less than 2 ha size, Indian agriculture produces sufficient food, feed, and fiber for India's large population of 1.35 billion, and in addition generates some net export surplus. This would not have been possible without the infusion of massive credit to farmers to buy modern inputs ranging from seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery, etc. But how has this system of agri-credit evolved in India over time? What is its organizational structure, and how effective is it in terms of its reach, especially to smallholders? How efficiently can it deliver credit and what sorts of innovations are unfolding in this sector to make it more efficient, inclusive and sustainable? These are some of the key questions that are addressed in this paper. Our analysis in this paper shows that the Indian agri-credit system has made commendable progress, with major policy changes, especially in 1969. The share of institutional credit to farming households in overall credit increased from about 10 percent in 1951 to 63 percent in 1981. But since then it has hovered around that level until 2013, the latest year for which this information is available from All India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS). However, total direct agri-credit (loans outstanding) from formal institutional sources as a percentage of AgGDP increased from about 16 percent in FY1982 to about 42 percent in FY2017; and direct short term institutional credit (loans outstanding) as a percentage of input requirements in agriculture increased from 22 percent in 1990-91 to 123 percent in 2015-16. This indicates that formal credit has been meeting all the requirements of inputs needed for modern agriculture. Also, in terms of inclusiveness, agri-credit institutions have played a major role. Small and marginal farmers, who operate on 47 percent of the operated area and account for 86 percent of the total operational holdings ...

India's policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced fertilizer subsidies. The government launched the National Food Security Mission in 2007-08 with an objective to raise grain production by 20 MMT over the subsequent five years. The results: India contained food inflation below 7 per cent in 2007-08; grain production increased by 42 MMT over five years leading to government's grain stocks touching 82 MMT in 2012. Backed by robust production and stock levels, rice exports surged when India freed up its exports in September 2011, making it a world leader in rice exports. However, policies followed during the crisis and eventually to combat it, resulted in a high fiscal deficit mainly because of the rising food and fertilizer subsidies, leading to double-digit food inflation after 2009-10. In retrospect, had India reviewed its export bans and opened up exports earlier, it could have avoided excessive grain stocks, reduced its fiscal deficit, and benefited global markets, leading to a win-win situation.

Given the importance of agriculture in any sizable country to feed its people, most countries have subsidised agriculture in the past, be they developed countries like the United States of America or countries in the European Union or Japan and Korea, or now emerging economies like China and India. The type of support, of course, varies widely across countries. The Government of India (GoI) has supported agriculture through budgetary provisions as well as through revenues foregone and a sizeable portion of budgetary support goes towards fertiliser subsidy. Fertiliser subsidy in India has succeeded in achieving its objective of increasing fertiliser consumption in agriculture and hence, raising food production, but it has also led to some problems because some fertiliser products have been priced very low. There are three key issues with regard to fertiliser subsidy in India: (1) rising amounts of fertiliser subsidy in the budget and how far they are financially sustainable; (2) extremely low prices of urea leading to imbalanced use of N, P and K, as also misuse of urea (like diversion to neighbouring countries and its use for non-agricultural purposes); and (3) lack of investment flows to the sector at home, leading to rising imports in the wake of uncertainty on fertiliser subsidy policy issues and delayed payments to industry. [.]

The public distribution system (PDS) has been one of the main policy instruments of the Government of India (GoI) to provide food security to the people of this country, especially the vulnerable ones. The recently enacted National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, also relies heavily on it to deliver even more grain at highly subsidized prices to 67 percent of population. But the existing PDS system has been highly "leaky", with large amounts of grains (40 to 50 percent) being pilfered and diverted to open market. Also, the existing PDS delivers better in better-off states rather than in those where there is concentration of poor, raising issues of equity. Further, the food subsidy bill is ballooning, with Rs 1.15 lakh crores budgeted for FY 2015 plus (unbudgeted) arrears of more than Rs 50,000 crores. The big challenge, therefore, is how to ensure that large sums of money being spent by GoI on PDS deliver food security more efficiently, with much lesser leakages and in a more cost effective manner. In an effort to highlight the inefficiency and iniquitous nature of the existing PDS, the present paper estimates the proportion of grain that was diverted/leaked from the PDS grain-chain in 2011-12. This is done by mapping the difference between the grains off-taken by states from the Central pool and the grain consumed by the PDS beneficiaries. It also studies how tuned is the PDS welfare delivery system to the country's poor. The paper finds that at an all-India level, 46.7 per cent or 25.9 MMTs of the off-taken grain did not reach the intended PDS beneficiaries in 2011-12. The percent share of total leakage increased with states where greater percent of India's poor resided (five states: UP, Bihar, MP, Maharashtra and West Bengal, which are home to close to 60% of India's poor accounted for close to 50% of the total grain leakage in the country in the year 2011-12). While some experts (Himanshu and Sen, 2011) pitch for near universal PDS to plug leakages, and NFSA argues for end to end computerization and setting up of vigilance committees and courts, this paper makes a case for shifting the support to poor from highly subsidized price policy to income policy of cash transfers through Jan-Dhan yojana dovetailing UID of Aadhaar scheme. We also argue that this is the best global practice, can plug leakages, reach the vulnerable segments of population, not interfere with markets of food, and save more than Rs. 30,000 crores annually to the government of India under the most likely scenario, while still giving a better deal to consumers. (.)

The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 combines and expands the scope of some existing food-based welfare schemes. It will be distributing raw rations, meal(s) and/or cash. Approximately 81.35 crore persons or 16.57 crore households are to benefit under the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) under the Act. The annual food grain requirement is estimated at 61.43 million tonnes with annual food subsidy implication of around Rs. 1.31 lakh crore. The paper empirically maps the annual distribution commitment (61.43 MMTs) of the government with the procurement pattern of rice and wheat, for each quarter, to estimate the quarterly operational stocking norms. In addition to the 61.4 MMTs grains, needed to meet the operational needs, the country also stocks for strategic needs. The paper proposes creation of 10 MMTs of grains in this regard- five MMTs to be procured from the domestic market and the remainder from the international market on a need basis. By re-introducing the concept of fungibility between the operational and strategic stocks and by utilizing the dynamics of the procurement pattern, the paper shows that the 61.4 MMTs of annual grain procurement will be sufficient for both the operational and strategic stock needs of the country. The estimated new norms (Scenario 2) are January - 21 MMTs, April - 18.7 MMTs, July - 36.8 MMTs and October - 24 MMTs. Recently approved CCEA norms, on comparison, are found to be on the higher side indicating the government's implicit preference for lower risk (the government stocks higher levels of strategic reserves, used mainly to smoothen inter/intra year fluctuations, than required) even if that implies higher costs. There are wider apprehensions that the Act will fail to deliver on the promises made. The bigger operational challenges include- ensuring the adequate supply of grains every year, lowering per person entitlement or population coverage particularly when the population is expanding, unpreparedness of the implementing states, slowing down the natural process of agricultural diversification by increasing the relevance of rice and wheat in the system. Therefore, the immediate suggestion is not to hurry in the NFSA implementation process, especially not without satisfying its pre-conditions in each state. Explicit challenges that the continuation of the existing system pose on the system warrants one to devise an appropriate income policy instrument to substitute NFSA (.)

Weather experts around the world are foreseeing a strong El Niño in 2014. In India, these developments are feared to lead to droughts. In the last 14 years, out of the four El Niño years globally, three resulted in Indian droughts. Since the 1980s, all the six droughts faced by India were in El Niño years but not all El Niño years led to drought situations in the country. The paper approaches the question of disconnect between El Niño and Indian droughts by exploring the timing of El Niño developments in a year and its relation with monsoon rains. We construct an India specific El Niño (ISEL), based on tracking temperature anomalies of three months moving averages for specific months (April-May-June to September-October-November), captured in the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI). The choice of these months is dictated by the fact that June-September rainfall months must be part of three monthly moving ONI anomalies, either as the ending month or beginning month. .

India did not experience any food price spikes during 2007-08 when global food prices erupted. It was partly due to India's ban on exports of wheat and common rice. But the fiscal stimulus that the government provided in 2009 in the wake of G8 countries' call to avert economic recession, coupled with one of the worst droughts India experienced in that year, led to rising food prices in India since mid-2009. Food price inflation has hovered between 8-12 per cent per annum since then. The nature of food inflation, however, changed from being cereals-led to high value products (fruits and vegetables, and protein foods) during 2010-11 and 2011-12. While food inflation invited severe political protests, the situation did not escalate to any riots or violence. The government has been trying hard to cool down food prices by reining-in fiscal deficit, tightening monetary policy, releasing more grains from public stocks, and distributing subsidized grains through the public distribution system to targeted population. Yet it has not quite succeeded in containing an uncomfortably high level of food inflation.This is a cause for concern given that India continues to face food security challenges given the large number of people living below the poverty line and a significant part of them being susceptible to food price shocks.

This chapter deals with the distortions to price incentives for agriculture that result from the trade, exchange rate and domestic policies in place in the four main South Asian countries, by summarizing and comparing the findings and themes of the more-detailed case studies on India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Attention is paid most to India, which accounts for around four fifths of South Asia's population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and agricultural GDP. The principal focus is on the level of and trends in distortions for agriculture as a whole, and how these have changed over time relative to those for non-agricultural traded sectors in these countries. Previous studies have established that in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, policies strongly favored manufacturing over the principal agricultural crops, although the extent of anti agricultural bias diminished considerably between the 1970s to 1995. The new country studies extend the earlier estimates up to 2005 and back to 1965, and provide long term estimates of distortions to relative agricultural incentives in Bangladesh for the first time. As well, these new studies broaden the coverage of previous research by including estimates for the fresh fruit and vegetables sector in India, and the dairying sectors in India and Pakistan. In South Asia both of these sectors account for large shares of the rural economy as measured by their contributions to GDP.