Uncertainty and Chaos in Indian Farming

Production, Livelihood and Income

S.K. Acharaya, A.B. Sharangi, Swagata Patra

• Publisher: NIPA GENX Electronic Resources and Solutions Pvt Ltd.
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9788119002252
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Agriculture
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Indian agriculture at large has been on trajectory of grand uncertainty. The brunt of climate change, sharp undulation in productivity, unpredictability in market price, the consistent up rise in cost of cultivation and downfall of net return are amounting to what we may call the grand uncertainty. Uncertainty is an inevitable character of any system where most of the contributory factors are either unpredictable or unfathomable. The higher is the complexity, the lesser would be the resilience, and higher would be the uncertainty. Agricultural production system, as it is managed in Indian condition, is the most vulnerable to a plethora of uncertainties. Mostly managed in an open air rain fed conditions, complex-diverse-risk prone, it has been exposed to weather and resource uncertainties, market volatility, poor access to technology and a fragile input delivery mechanism. Indian Agriculture is now at a crossroad and gets confronted by uncertainty and unpredictability._x000D__x000D_The growth rate of food production runs just marginally above population growth. The book has uniquely dealt with a basket of perceived uncertainties that makes farmers and economy reel under stress and risk. The worlds largest agrarian economy is being managed mostly by private land owners, who are mostly under the clutch of middlemen and vagaries of weather._x000D__x000D_The book, based on an empirical study, has indentified the marker variables of farmers in responding to and complying with the unpredictability and freaks of social dynamics._x000D_