Study with reference to Kaithal and Sirsa Districs of the state of Haryana, India.

World Bank Technical Paper No. 383. This paper summarizes the findings of a multisector study designed to examine the efficacy and importance of various technology policies, technology-support institutions, incentive measures, and other sources of technological know-how. It examines how various firms in different sectors and countries improve their technology to increase productivity and product quality and develop new products and processes. Economies studied in this report included Canada, China, Hungary, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico and Taiwan (China).

The only applied textbook on farm management specifically designed for Australian agricultural students and farmers confronts the complexities of the 1990s wherein farm businesses are forced to adapt to technological changes and new financial pressures.

This book examines the performance of organized retail chains supplying the agri-input and output services in terms of achieving their objective of utilising collective bargaining power in the marketing of their agricultural produce, integrating empirical experience from India and other selected developing countries. The scenario of marketing for agricultural products has been undergoing rapid changes with the rise of organised retailing (the Indian term for ‘supermarkets’), a process that is likely to accelerate in years to come, with India being on the threshold of a supermarket revolution. In fact, India is referred to as the ‘final frontier’ in the development of supermarkets. The growth of supermarkets in India is faster than that in China, which is also witnessing an exponential growth as part of the “third wave” of supermarket diffusion. The book investigates the links between organised retailing and farmers and farming in India. Apart from raising issues of equity, inclusion and problems in policy framework, it also discusses policy interventions that are essential in order to make the development of organised retailing more inclusive and beneficial to the farming community and agricultural sector. The book further serves as a guide for policy makers, helping them to select the right kind of interventions to balance growth with equity as market forces penetrate deeper into the agricultural marketing space.

The Southern Africa region has experienced more than its fair share of problems in recent years. Just when it seemed that the hardships wrought by the devastating cycle of droughts and floods of 2000 to 2002 were a thing of the past, other problems emerged. At one level, there have been the weak and often erratic governance mechanisms and political crises in some countries of the region, leading to severe disruptions in agricultural production to the point that supplies and markets have virtually disappeared. At another level, socio-cultural rigidities have often militated against the adoption of efficient farming practices, resulting in sub-optimal choices that lock smallholders into a low equilibrium trap. In the face of the disappearing supplies and missing markets, these have engendered hyper-inflationary trends of a magnitude unknown anywhere else in the world. But in the midst of all this apparent dreariness, cases are emerging from which immense lessons can be drawn. This book assembles a collection of research papers based on studies completed in 2008 and 2009 in Southern Africa that examine various dimensions of the institutional constraints small farmers are facing in the region and how they are going about dealing with them. The papers draw from these diverse and polar experiences and present some theoretical and practical insights that should form the basis for more in-depth, country-level, sector-specific analyses, focusing mainly on citrus, horticultures, cotton and livestock. The thematic issues of income inequality, land reform, natural resource management and value chain governance and chain choice, are covered in this book and are expected to be of interest for a wide constituency, including researchers, development practitioners, rural animators, and policy makers.

This book discusses the increased scope, complexity and globalization of markets, the changes in technology behind this, and the need for policy and program adjustments. Also discusses the development of supply chains both domestically and globally.