Andhra Pradesh and Punjab are looking at initiating contract research programmes with the International Food Policy and Research Institute based in Washington DC, USA, to fill the gaps in information required for effective implementation of farm policies.
Suresh Chandra Babu, a senior research fellow with the institute and head of IFPRI's training and capacity strengthening program, was in India recently to interact with interested states in Hyderabad and assess research needs.
Speaking to Business Standard, Babu said that research activities would be taken up in specific areas of opportunities for the private sector such as grain management, methodologies to improve depleting water table and power and irrigation reforms aimed at reducing subsidies.
"We want to open the way for dialogue between policymakers and policy researchers to ensure research activities indeed reflect needs of the people in India. In turn, policymakers will be more likely to translate these research findings into meaningful policy," he said.
These were initial areas for research. In future, the association would tackle trickier subjects. Babu met several chief ministers and the Union minister of agriculture Ajit Singh to discuss increasing investment in agriculture.
Citing statistics on farm income, poverty levels and falling water table, Babu pointed out that India's immediate neighbours had perfectly workable and innovative solutions for such problems.
"It is important to think globally, make the farmer more aware, educated and increase market orientation," he said. Technological innovations were required, including developing agro-processing and food processing industries.
Working with the South Asia Initiative in India and immediate neighbours, Babu said his job was to provide information to policy makers in agriculture and make them more responsible. "We want to concentrate on the multiplier effect of agriculture in a developing economy, so $1 generated through the farm economy also helps generate another $1 in the non-farm economy, especially where the non-farm economy is not thriving," Babu said.
In the late 1970s, IFPRI's collaborative research in India focused on understanding of the impact of food subsidies on food consumption, nutrition and income distribution. Studies were conducted on production instability in Indian agriculture, policy modelling of foodgrain markets and analysis of structural changes in the agricultural economy.
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