Articles by Bhupat M Desai

For 40 years, India's agricultural growth rate has averaged less than one-third of the government's modest target of 4%. The sector's performance has been about the same before and after the economic reforms in the early 1990s. The reforms that brought a dramatic acceleration of growth in urban sectors have essentially had no effect on agriculture. Slow agricultural growth has had ill-effects on food security, food price inflation and poverty reduction because of the inadequate level and composition of public expenditure. Agricultural education, research, extension and a wide range of ancillary public institutions have also suffered. Agricultural growth always demands massive public goods provision and that in turn requires a radical reorientation of central, state and district government activities. This paper advocates a new integrated, technology-led strategy to pull out of, what looks like, a vicious circle that agriculture is now caught in.

and the state

Development and Deprivation in Gujarat: In Honour of Jan Breman edited by Ghanshyam Shah, Mario Rutten and Hein Streefkerk; Sage Publications, New Delhi, Thousand Oaks and London, 2002; pp 345, Rs 580.

Neither barter terms of trade nor trade liberalisation can be alternatives to technical change for domestic agricultural growth. What is needed is an integrated farming system approach, which requires paradigm shifts in government and private expenditure on R and D in agriculture. Broad-based technical change in agriculture will make it internationally competitive, and also extend the fruits of this change to those who cannot on their own invest in it.

Economic Reforms, Terms of Trade, Aggregate Supply and Private Investment in Agriculture Bhupat M Desai Errol D