What will it take for India, with a burgeoning population of well over a billion, to meet its food needs in the coming years? If the country is to speed progress in reducing hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity, it must first revisit its food policy framework and level the playing field for nongrain crops. In Pulses for Nutrition in India: Changing Patterns from Farm to Fork, leading researchers consider the role that pulses can play in improving food security and nutrition as well as the changes necessary in production practices to accomplish these goals.

India, a country with high concentrations of poor and malnourished people, long promoted a cereal-centric diet composed of subsidized staple commodities such as rice and wheat to feed its population of more than a billion. Today, however, dietary patterns are changing. Policy makers, researchers, and health activists are looking for ways to fight hunger and malnutrition in the country. As they shift their focus from calorie intake to nutrition, neglected foods such as pulses (the dried, edible seeds of legumes) are gaining attention. Pulses for Nutrition in India: Changing Patterns from Farm to Fork explores the numerous benefits of a diet that incorporates pulses. Pulses, including pigeonpeas, lentils, and chickpeas, are less expensive than meat and are excellent sources of protein. In India, people consume pulses and other legumes for protein intake. Pulses also benefit the ecosystem. Among protein-rich foods, pulses have the lowest carbon and water footprints. Pulses also improve soil health by naturally balancing atmospheric nitrogen in the soil; thus, growing pulses reduces the need for nitrogenous fertilizer. Pulses for Nutrition in India: Changing Patterns from Farm to Fork looks at the country’s pulses sector in light of agricultural systems, climate change, irrigation design, and how policies (including the Green Revolution) have evolved over time. To understand how pulses can help fulfill the objectives of India’s food policies, experts explore the role that pulse production plays in global trade; the changing demand for pulses in India since the 1960s; the possibility of improving pulse yields with better technology to compete with cereals; and the long-term health benefits of greater reliance on pulses. The analyses in Pulses for Nutrition in India: Changing Patterns from Farm to Fork contribute to the emerging literature on pulses and will aid policy makers in finding ways to feed and nourish a growing population.

The paper attempts to fill a knowledge gap by examining India’s pulse complex, consisting of production, consumption, and trade policies. India’s pulse policies are anchored in a cereal-centric farming system and prioritize national self-sufficiency as well as the mitigation of relative price increases in food. On the farmer side, government policy includes price support (a minimum support price [MSP]) for different pulses initially without procurement, but later backed by public procurement. The MSP plus procurement elicited a comparatively high supply response. Without procurement, the MSP worked only to anchor prices and benefit traders at the farmers’ expense. By not accounting for the needed risk premium (for a supply response) the MSP kept domestic production low. Even as the world’s largest importer of pulses, the scale of pulse imports in India have generally not been large enough to cool its markets and bring down domestic prices. Instantaneous supply adjustments by exporters in response to trade policy changes are difficult.

Despite strong economic growth in 2017, antiglobal­ization sentiments increased uncertainty about inter­national cooperation. A rise in hunger, linked with conflict and climate shocks, reconfirmed the impor­tance of IFPRI’s mission-providing research-based policy solutions that reduce poverty and end hun­ger and malnutrition sustainably-and the need for greater global efforts to improve our food systems and accelerate progress toward ending hunger. With its refreshed strategy, IFPRI is proud to contrib­ute to progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Chapter 14 from this book is published open access and free to read or download from Oxford Scholarship Online, https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/ Before the UN Sustainable Development Goals enables professionals, scholars, and students engaged with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to develop a richer understanding of the legacies and historical complexities of the policy fields behind each goal. Each of the seventeen chapters tells the decades- or centuries-old backstory of one SDG and reveals the global human connections, governance tools and frameworks, and the actors involved in past efforts to address sustainable development challenges. Collectively, the seventeen chapters build a historical latticework that reveals the multiple and often interwoven sources that have shaped the challenges later encompassed in the SDGs. Engaging and insightfully written, the book's chapters are authored by international experts from multiple disciplines. The book is an indispensable resource and a vital foundation for understanding the past's indelible footprint on our contemporary sustainable development challenges.

Advances in Legume-based Agroecoystem for Sustainable Intensification explores current research and future strategies for ensuring capacity growth and socioeconomic improvement through the utilization of legume crop cultivation and production in the achievement of sustainability development goals (SDGs). Sections cover the role of legumes in addressing issues of food security, improving nitrogen in the environment, environmental sustainability, economic-environmentally optimized systems, the importance and impact of nitrogen, organic production, and biomass potential, legume production, biology, breeding improvement, cropping systems, and the use of legumes for eco-friendly weed management. This book is an important resource for scientists, researchers and advanced students interested in championing the effective utilization of legumes for agronomic and ecological benefit. - Focuses on opportunities for agricultural impact and sustainability - Presents insights into both agricultural sustainability and eco-intensification - Includes the impact of legume production on societal impacts such as health and wealth management

Agri-food exports are important for Myanmar’s economic takeoff, in particular for the transformation of agri-food systems. This paper analyzes the past performance of key agri-food exports and assess their role and future potential to contribute to the transformation of Myanmar’s agri-food system and the overall economy.

“This book provides new insights into the important and developing agricultural value chains, including on current constraints and the enormity of opportunities, emanating in the dynamic GMS, especially through to their main giant market of China. Analysis in the GMS countries forms comparable case studies of major crops using mappings of their key processes and actors, as well as both qualitative and quantitative data, including primary data collection such as from new surveys. The analysis uses understandable methodologies, such as graphical cross-country comparisons, and established ratios, such as on comparative advantage, to provide useful insights into GMS agricultural value chains. A particular focus in the case studies is better understanding of the role Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) might play in constraining agricultural exports to China and approaches to addressing these that are more inclusive and economically rewarding. I recommend this valuable book to those interested in agricultural trade in GMS countries and China, as well as the characteristics of their agricultural value chains, and their contribution to these countries’ development.” -- Dr Ray Trewin, Former Fellow, ANU and editor of Crucial Agricultural Policy (World Scientific, 2016). “The Greater Mekong Subregion encompasses several open, dynamic, latecomer economies. Over the past thirty years, they have benefited immensely from the restoration of peace, their re-engagement with the regional and global economies, and the rise of China. The region as a whole is a net food exporter with a strong comparative advantage in agriculture. How they manage their international commercial relations, with China in particular, will significantly influence their future socio-economic dynamics. The authors and contributors, all leading researchers in the field, are to be congratulated for this timely and authoritative volume that comprehensively examines the issues and charts a productive way forward. A must-read for anybody interested in these important issues and countries.” -- Professor Hal Hill, H.W. Arndt Professor Emeritus of the Southeast Asian Economies, ANU

Legumes (family Fabaceae) comprise a diverse range of crops grown worldwide, which are important constituents of sustainable agriculture and harbour a role in improving human and livestock health. Legumes serve as a rich source of plant-based proteins, rank second in nutrition value after cereals, and are ideal to supplement a protein-deficient cereal-based human diet. Legumes also provide other essential services to agriculture through their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, recycle nutrients, enhance soil carbon content, and diversify cropping systems. Legume production and seed quality are affected by a range of biotic (pests, insect diseases, and weeds) and abiotic stresses (drought, heat, frost, and salinity). In addition to this, rapidly changing climate, shrinking arable land, erratic rainfalls, and depleting water and other natural resources impact legume production and threaten food and nutrition security worldwide. Persistent demand for legume crops is existing to fulfil the food requirements of an ever-growing human population. Therefore, legume breeders and geneticists have employed different conventional and modern breeding strategies to improve yield, resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, grain quality, and nutritional and nutraceutical properties. Conventional breeding strategies are laborious, time consuming, expensive, and inefficient to achieve the desired goals. However, advanced breeding techniques such as alien gene introgression, genomics-assisted breeding, transgenic technology, speed breeding, association and mapping studies, genome editing, and omics will contribute to sustainable agriculture and food security.

COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan City in December 2019 and spread throughout Hubei Province and other parts of China. After causing significant morbidity and mortality in China, by February 2020, it had spread to numerous other countries, infecting millions of people and causing a large number of deaths across the world. The COVID-19 pandemic put a burden on almost all areas of the world including healthcare systems, education, industry, travel, etc. The pandemic revealed the vulnerability of the world’s healthcare systems and affected healthcare personnel significantly. The virus is able to attack not only the respiratory tract, but almost all the organs including the brain. Impacts on gut biota have also been noticed. The virus has caused both morbidity and mortality in humans without any geographical, cultural, or religious barriers. The emergence of new variants due to mutations in the virus has aggravated the problem. While the delta variant brought a second wave and killed a large number of people due to various factors such as lowering of saturated oxygen in blood and other physiological emergencies, the omicron variant proved to be less lethal. Though the pandemic has subsided, the emergence of the subvariants BA1 and BA2 and now their hybrids has started to increase the number of cases at exponential levels and has forced new lockdown measures in places such as China. As the conditions laid down to combat the pandemic have been relaxed, the virus may reach other countries and cause additional countries to resort to lockdown again. COVID-19 became the focus of the scientific community with the aim of developing new drugs, repurposing available drugs to be used against the virus, and developing a series of vaccines in a short time. The mild effect of omicron might have been due to the extensive vaccination programmes carried out in various countries. However, there is genuine fear that newly emerging variants may evade the immune system and cause damage to the body. This book highlights the impact of COVID-19 on science, industry, and healthcare systems. The chapters included in the volume come from dedicated experts belonging to basic sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences, and other fields of sciences. These include discussions on how the virus evolves and attacks various organs in the body. A separate chapter explains the emergence of various strains of virus. The preparedness of hospitals and healthcare workers as well as different agencies such as DRDO to face the challenges posed by virus is also discussed. The way scientists and technologists developed new techniques to detect and control the virus have also been highlighted including a chapter on the development of vaccines to control the pandemic. This book is a key resource for students, teachers, medical personnel, administrators, and the public as a whole.