District-Level Database for Indian Agriculture and Allied Sectors
In the pursuit of development goals at any level, data is essential for measuring advancements and identifying barriers to progress. To help strengthen research and policymaking in India, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and TCI partnered on a comprehensive, one-stop shop for data related to India’s food systems and beyond. This open-access platform can be used by a wide array of stakeholders working to address issues of food security, nutrition, and sustainable agriculture in India.
Intractable problems
India has made great progress in its struggle to end hunger in the country, but difficult challenges remain as the country faces the triple burden of malnutrition. Progress on undernutrition remains slow compared to economic growth, with 14.5% of Indians undernourished as of 2016-18. Yet, in recent years overnutrition is a growing issue. In the past ten years, the obesity rate doubled for men and increased by 62% for women. Rising obesity brings with it numerous public health issues, including noncommunicable diseases like diabetes. Micronutrient deficiency is also a concern, with high rates of anemia and vitamin deficiencies.
While malnutrition is a national problem, trends vary across the country and even within individual states. In any given district or state, malnutrition challenges vary depending upon the nature of economic growth, agricultural production, and the level of development. As such, effective policies will vary as well. What works in Bihar will not necessarily work in Karnataka.
In such a scenario, effective policymaking requires reliable, district-level data on agricultural, nutrition, and socioeconomic indicators.
District-level data made accessible
The District-Level Database for Indian Agriculture and Allied Sectors brings together socioeconomic, environmental, nutrition, and health-related data for 571 districts in 20 Indian states from 1966-2017, providing a link between country-level macro data and household-level microdata.
With 74 datasets, 1,030 variables, and more than 11 million data points, the platform enables users to access a range of factors, including crops, irrigation, infrastructure, gross domestic product, and more.
To account for changes in district boundaries and the creation of new districts, the platform includes “apportioned” datasets in which data from districts formed after 1966 has been given back to its parent districts, allowing for comparison over time. Data is also available in “un-apportioned” datasets, which include data for all 571 districts.
