Suchergebnisse

Ever since India's independence large-scale government interventions have been drastically shaping the landscape of the food grain sector. From a famine-prone country, India has become a large exporter and stockholder, with stable domestic prices and several nutrition programs. At the same time, 15 per cent of Indian population is still undernourished. The Indian government is currently implementing one of the world largest food aid programs - the National Food Security Act (NFSA) – in the course of which it experiences many challenges and needs rigorous analysis of the measures and tools of managing the system. Additionally, there is a strong international pressure on India to liberalize its policies in the food grain sector. The present dissertation studies various aspects of the food grain policies in India aiming to provide their comprehensive analysis. We use econometric time-series techniques to ex-post evaluate the impacts of the policy measures on the market outcomes. Among other conclusions, we find a strong response of the wheat and rice production to the support prices whereas the rice consumption is mostly driven by the distribution of the subsidized grains. Due to protectionist trade policies, the grain export is so distorted that its volumes hardly correlate with the prices. We detect a clear upward trend in inflation adjusted fiscal costs, started in 2006-07, as a consequence of growing procurement, storage and distribution of wheat and rice. We develop a dynamic partial equilibrium model with stochastic production shocks, based on the econometric results mentioned above. We produce mid-term simulations of different scenarios with possible policy measures to comply with the NFSA obligations based on the current, in-kind, system. We find that the high pressure on fiscal costs and public stocks, put by the NFSA, can be mitigated at the cost of higher and more volatile market prices. Our simulations indicate that a cash-based regime, alternative to the in-kind distribution, generates lower fiscal costs while the total stocks remain sufficient due to the increase of the private stocks. However, the higher market prices and volatility characterizing this scenario may negatively affect the producers, consumers, and the political stability. Basing on household consumption data, by means of cross-sectional econometric techniques we analyze the consumption patterns of wheat and rice delivered through the Public Distribution System (PDS), targeting errors and reasons for leakage, self-selection and under-supply of staples. We find some serious targeting errors of the PDS: many poor households are not included in the system and migrant workers and female-led households are often not well covered. There is a negative self-selection of the richer households that results in cost savings, which would be lost under a cash-transfer scheme. We find that the leakage rates are in general very low for poor households and regions. Furthermore, we find that subsidizing increases the total consumption of wheat and rice. This increase, however, produces additional pressure on the prices that can have negative consequences for the poor excluded from the system because of the high targeting errors.

India's economic standing and its policy landscape have come a long way since the 1943 Bengal famine. History saw buffer stocking of food grains as a famine-combating tool. Today, apart from serving as an effective hedge in times of famines, such grain stocks are a conduit deployed by the government to foster the country's agriculture development and food security. The buffer stocking policy of food grains has become the one tool with the government used to fulfil the interlinked objectives of supporting food-producers and food-consumers, and of ensuring food availability at the national level. The policy of widespread government intervention in the food management of the country has been successful in many ways. From a food-scarce, food-importing country, India has emerged as a grain-surplus and a net grain-exporting country. The production base is strong and growing. Food security, in terms of ample grain supplies, has been attained at the national level. However, an evaluation of the country's buffer stock policy reveals gaps and inefficiencies. Large quantities of food grains have accumulated in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and its nominated state agencies, raising questions about the economic efficiency of the entire operation. At the same time, there is high incidence of malnutrition and rising food grain prices across the country. The level of government intervention in grain markets is straining government finances because of the increasing burden of food subsidy. There are increasing concerns regarding the imbalances being created in the national production basket, of alienation of market forces and its players, of quality of grain, and the sustainability and relevance of such operations.

Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) poses a serious threat to livelihoods and food security for millions of households in Africa. Despite considerable investments in Uganda by the Government and other national and international stakeholders, the disease persists in the country after periods of significant resurgence. Building on the Agricultural Innovation Systems framework, this paper reviews the role of the major stakeholders involved in controlling the disease in Uganda. Next, using household survey data, it analyzes economic costs and benefits of adopting an integrated BXW control package for the Ugandan smallholder farmers. After 2015, there has been a significant reduction in both public and private investments in BXW management, which may contribute to future disease resurgence. Our analysis reveals a high level of partial adoption of BXW recommended practices, and just a third of farmers adopting a full control package. This means significant economic losses for non- adopters, as indicated by our findings that households adopting the full package registered a net balance of US$65 per acre higher than non-adopters. We find that disproportionally large costs need to be borne at the beginning of the process, while the benefits are distributed over time, which may present a barrier to adoption by resource-poor smallholders. ; Peer Review