It was a beautiful rainy Tuesday morning when I was greeted by the pleasant whistle of the toy train on my way to one of the most famous tea gardens in the Darjeeling district. The tea garden supervisor had told me to arrive at 7 a.m. sharp if I wanted to meet the female workers…

“They [wild animals] want the best and the most expensive tea leaves,” remarked a tea estate staffer during my visit to an estate in The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu. While the purpose of my visit was to primarily understand the adoption of digital technologies in agriculture and allied sectors, the “human-animal conflict” I noticed in every…

Before planning your week, it is probably not unusual for you to check the weather forecast on your smartphone. For a farmer in a rural developing economy, however, weather news is more likely to come from the TV, radio, or social networks. Timely weather updates are critical for farmers who rely on their yields as…

TCI alumni shine in many different fields, including academics and development research. One recent alumnus is making a mark in private industry as a food scientist combining science, technology, and business acumen. Rohil Sahai Bhatnagar, who received his PhD in food science and technology from Cornell University in 2020, is now a senior research scientist…

Public plant breeding programs play a central role in tackling local food security challenges around the world, but how can we be sure that they are operating effectively and optimally at the institutional level? In this blog series, the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Crop Improvement’s (ILCI) institutional capacity team explores how they came to define…

Tata-Cornell Institute alumnus Anthony Wenndt is making a difference in the lives of the poor. In Africa and other parts of the world where malnutrition is a public health concern, he works to improve the nutrition outcomes of the programs of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). Wenndt credits his experience performing fieldwork while…

As India’s population increases and demand for food rises along with it, farm laborers—women in particular—face increased burdens and drudgery. Enter NBeG47, a machine-harvestable chickpea variety introduced by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) to reduce the hours women spend on the chickpea harvest while maintaining a protein-rich food supply. In…

The Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) is embarking on the next phase of its project to support smallholder farmers in India through the promotion of effective farmer producer organization (FPO) models. The centerpiece of this effort is the further development of TCI’s Database for Indian FPOs within the FPO Hub of its Center…

The average size of farms in developing countries of the world is 2 hectares or less. Smallholder farmers who rely on agriculture as their primary source of income often live in poverty. By joining together with other smallholders, farmers can reap the benefits of scale and see increased income. A new annotated bibliography from the…

Through the Public Distribution System (PDS), the Indian government ensures the food security of its most impoverished citizens. However, new research from the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) reveals that the production of food grain for the PDS carries significant hidden environmental and health costs. In 2019-20, those costs increased the overall cost…