Women work for at least 50 hours a week. This is our finding from a one-week labour diary or time-use survey conducted in Siresandra village of Kolar, Karnataka in May 2017. As part of a project on Women in Rural Production Systems, the Foundation for Agrarian Studies team interviewed 14 women on all the activities undertaken every day for a week.
How Do Small Farmers Fare? Evidence from Village Studies in India
The book titled “How Do Small Farmers Fare: Evidence from Village Studies in India”, edited by Madhura Swaminathan and Sandipan Baksi, is a study of the small farm economy in India by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.
Misunderstanding Data, Poor Analysis, and Wrong Conclusions
A recent paper, published by the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences of the United States) and authored by Tamma A. Carleton, titled “Climate Change and Agricultural Suicides in India” claims that “temperature during India’s main agricultural growing season has a strong positive effect on annual suicide rates.” Regrettably, the paper has received widespread uncritical coverage in the Indian media.
A Prestigious Award for Jun-ichi Okabe
The Japan Society of Economic Statistics has presented its 2017 Award to Jun-ichi Okabe, Professor, Yokohama National University, for the book he wrote with Aparajita Bakshi, A New Statistical Domain in India: An Enquiry into Village Panchayat Databases, Tulika Books, New Delhi, 2016.
The Effects of Extreme Temperature on Crop Yield in Karnataka
One of the immediate consequences of climate variability is the occurrence of extreme weather events, which are expected to increase in the future as global warming intensifies. A study of climate change and agricultural yield in Karnataka, supported by the Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission (Jayaraman, et al. 2017), was recently undertaken to analyse the relationship between extreme temperatures and crop yield at the sub-district (taluka) level for selected crops.
Forests and Food Security
There is an interesting new report on forests and food security from the High Level Panel of Experts of the Committee on World Food Security (HLPE 2017).
Review of A New Statistical Domain in India
My review in Japanese appears in Statistics, the journal of the Japanese Society of Economic Statistics. The review begins by introducing the book series, mentioning that the book is part of the Agrarian Studies Series of the Foundation for Agrarian Studies.
The Shrinking Policy Space for Food Security
Food security one one of the foremost goals of social policy in most developing countries, including India. Subsidies for food security can be at the producer level (through price support and procurement), at the storage, processing and transport level and, finally, at the retail level (that is, to the consumer). As per the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), subsidies are permissible except through price support and procurement.
Visit to Kolar Chikkaballapura Milk Union Ltd (KOMUL)
As part of the project titled “Women’s Work in Agriculture and Rural Production in India”, the Foundation for Agrarian Studies conducted a week-long pilot time-use survey of women in Siresandra village of Kolar district from May 11 to 19, 2017. Fourteen women from different socio-economic backgrounds were chosen for the study.
Women’s Work in Animal Care
In a recent Research Note, Yoshifumi Usami and I had examined women’s work in livestock and animal rearing, and we had argued that women constitute the primary work force in the animal resources sector. While we had data on the number of women participating in animal rearing activity, we did not have information on the time spent in animal care. Information on these lines is now available from a pilot time-use survey conducted last week in Siresandra village, Kolar district, Karnataka.
