Tag: Agricultural Transformation, Food Systems & Nutrition Transition
Are Forests Still Relevant for the Nutrition Security of Traditional Forest Dwellers? Insights from One Year of Fieldwork in Kalahandi, Odisha
Forests have garnered a lot of attention in international policy discussions in recent years because of their role in addressing the rising challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change. Less discussed is the importance of forests for the sustainability of…
The Battle for Space: Human vs Animal
“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…
Are the Lessons from the Green Revolution Relevant for Agricultural Growth and Food Security in the Twenty-First Century?
In Jonna P. Estudillo, Yoko Kijima, and Tetsushi Tenobe (Eds.), Agricultural Development in Asia and Africa: Essays in Honor of Keijiro Otsuka, Springer 2023
Environmental and Health Effects Add Billions in Hidden Costs to India’s Public Distribution System
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…
Revealing the Hidden Production Costs of India’s Public Distribution System
This policy brief presents preliminary estimates of the environmental and health-related costs associated with the production of food grain for India’s Public Distribution System (PDS), a program that provides subsidized food to more than 800 million Indians. This new analysis provides government policymakers, advocates, and...
New Project Will Reveal True Cost of India’s Food Subsidies
Each year, India spends tens of billions of dollars on the Public Distribution System (PDS), a food subsidy program that helps to ensure the food security of more than 800 million people. The largest such program in the world, the…
What’s Driving Crop Diversification? Talking to Farmers in Bihar
After arriving in Sadaivigha village in Lakhisarai, Bihar, on a hot day in June, Anurag and I followed a field technician, Abhay, to the farmhouse where we would conduct our first focus group discussion of the day. It was my…
Asia’s Food Systems Transformation: How It Happened and What Comes Next
Not so long ago, famines were a recurrent feature in Asia, with many dying from chronic hunger and poverty. The continent’s swing from deficiency to self-sufficiency in food did not happen unaided; it was thanks to policy and technology interventions.…
Food Systems Transformation in Asia – A Brief Economic History
Agricultural Economics, July 2022
Indian Obesity Varies by Gender, Rural/Urban Divide
TCI Policy Brief Number 5, April 2022