Dr Ghanshyam Pandey, Assistant Professor of Economics, SRM University – AP has been appointed as an expert for agriculture, rural development, livelihood issues, and climate change and agriculture by The Centre of Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CRIDAP). CRIDAP is an intergovernmental and autonomous organization and has 15 member countries. The member countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. His tenure of appointment will be up to 2024.

Dr Ghanshyam Pandey’s role in the organisation:

• CIRDAP resource person to participate in project proposal development and consultancy.
• CIRDAP resource person for flagship training courses.
• Reviewer of Asia-Pacific Journal on Rural Development (APJORD).
• Part of CIRDAP Think Tank for knowledge sharing and solutions to IRD and PA.
• To expand CIRDAP Think Tank Networks.
• To advise on refining CIRDAP Strategic Plan 2020-2024.

About the organisation:
The Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) is a regional, intergovernmental and autonomous organisation. It was established on 6 July 1979 at the initiative of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations with support from several other UN bodies and donors. The Centre came into being to meet the felt needs of the developing countries at that time as an institution for promoting integrated rural development in the region. From the original six members, CIRDAP has now grown up as a Centre of 15 member countries. The member countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh (Host State), Fiji, India, Indonesia, Iran, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. Operating through designated contact ministries and link institutions in member countries, CIRDAP promotes regional cooperation. It plays a supplementary and reinforcing role in supporting and furthering the effectiveness of integrated rural development programmes in Asia and the Pacific.

Dr Balaga Mohana Rao, Assistant Professor from the Department of Economics has been awarded the best PhD thesis award in the 59th IIT Bombay convocation held on August 07, 2021. The thesis titled The Early Warnings of the Impending Currency Crises and the Ensuing Macroeconomic Costs aims to develop an Early Warning System to identify the Currency Crises that would help in preventing an impending crisis and also in mitigating the devastating aftermath effects if that occurred.

The financial crises have enthused a huge theoretical and empirical debate in current times due to their recurrent nature in the history of economics. To highlight the importance of an economic crisis among various sections, Kaminsky et al. (1998) quote Kindleberger (1978) saying that academics are interested in a crisis as they have had a history of fascination for the crises, policymakers are interested because they want to prevent the crisis, and financial market participants are interested as they can make money out of it. The financial crises can be divided into two broad categories—currency and sudden stop crises, and debt and banking crises. The currency crises have not only swept away Argentina (2001), Brazil (1998–1999), Latin America (the 1980s), Russia (1998), Southeast Asia (1997) and UK (1992) (to name a few) but they also have caused serious economic adversities to India and BRICS in the recent past. A currency crisis encompasses one of the following four features or a combination of them owing to a speculative attack—both successful and unsuccessful attacks—on a currency: A sharp depreciation of a currency (possibly followed by devaluation) and/or huge depletion of foreign exchange reserves or an increase in interest rates by the central bank or imposing restrictions on capital flows. In this context, Dr Balaga Mohana Rao’s thesis focuses on developing an early warning system to identify the impending crises, finding the common determinants of currency crises and the aftermath effects on macroeconomic indicators.

“One may wonder why the crisis should be prevented or mitigated. The reason is that a full-blown crisis will not be just confined to the foreign exchange market or some other segment, but it will affect the whole economy” Dr Balaga said. He plans to extend his PhD work on Currency Crises and see it in the context of the International Price System.

Heat stress negatively affects crop yield and its impact has increased over time. Researchers in India study this situation with utmost priority. Consequently, Dr Ghanshyam Kumar Pandey, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at SRM University-AP has co-authored a paper with Pratap S Birthal and et. al titled “Benefits of irrigation against heat stress in agriculture: Evidence from wheat crop in India” in the journal Agricultural Water Management, Vol 255, having an Impact factor 4.02.

Applying the fixed effects regression technique to the highly spatially disaggregated district-level data from 1966–67 to 2011–12. This paper has assessed the impact of heat stress on wheat production in India and concurrently evaluated the role of irrigation in offsetting its harmful impact. The study has brought out three key highlights:

(i) Heat stress negatively impacts crop yield, and the impact has increased over time.
(ii) Irrigation, besides its contribution towards improving crop yield, also moderates the harmful impact of heat stress, but over time its effectiveness has declined.
(iii) The measure of heat stress built on multiple aspects of excess temperature (i.e., intensity, persistence, and frequency) explains variation in crop yield better than working on a single aspect of it.

Given the increasing scarcity of irrigation water and rising temperature, these findings suggest the need for exploring technological and policy options for improving irrigation water use, efficiency, and breeding of crops for heat tolerance and low water footprints.

This research paper is written in collaboration with ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research, PUSA, New Delhi. Dr Ghanshyam’s future projects are focused on climate change and agriculture, and the effect of climate change on the livestock sector in India.

Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2021.106950

Department of Economics, SRM University-AP organised the International Conclave on “Transition towards sustainability of Agriculture: Role of Technology in Agriculture Supply Chain” on June 3-4th, 2021. Prof Vijay Paul Sharma, Chairman, Commission for Agriculture Costs and Price (CACP), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer Welfare, GoI, India, was the chief guest of the event. The tope agricultural economist from India and abroad from the reputed institutions, i.e., Arizona State University, USA; Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Bangladesh; ICAR-NIAP; IFPRI South Asia Office Delhi; JNU, IIMA, IIMB, IGIDR Mumbai, Delhi School of Economics; Institute of Economic Growth; Symbiosis School of Economics, Pune; Central University of Punjab; Central University of Jammu; Sharda University, Noida; Amity University, Noida; PAU, Ludhiana; AN Sinha Institute of Social Sciences, Patna; Centre for Development Studies; Thrivanthapuram delivered lectures and participated in Panel Discussions in the two-day event.

The event started with the welcome address of Dr Ghanshyam Pandey, Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Economics and the opening remarks were delivered by Prof V S Rao, Vice-Chancellor, SRM University-AP.

“The agriculture and food sector are facing multiple challenges. With the global population projected to grow from 7.6 billion in 2018 to over 9.6 billion in 2050, there will be a significant increase in the demand for food. At the same time, the availability of natural resources such as fresh water and productive arable land is becoming increasingly constrained. Production is not the only concern; although agricultural output is currently enough to feed the world, 821 million people still suffer from hunger. Processes such as the rapid rate of urbanisation also have important implications for food production patterns and consumption patterns. This will require an urgent transformation of the current agri-food system. Digital innovations and technologies may be part of the solution. In the agriculture and food sector, the spread of mobile technologies, remote-sensing services, and distributed computing are already improving smallholders’ access to information, inputs, market, finance, and training. Digital technologies are creating new opportunities to integrate smallholders into a digitally-driven agri-food system,” said Prof Rao.

In the first Keynote speech of the conclave Prof Vijay Paul Sharma, Chairman, Commission for Agriculture Costs and Price (CACP), Ministry of Agriculture & Farmer Welfare, GoI, India, explained all the aspects of the agriculture sector to achieve sustainable growth. He started with agriculture production shifted from supply-driven to demand-driven, filling the yield gap between the states and moved on to the right kind of government intervention to improve the farmers’ welfare, shortage of labourer and mechanisation, technology, credit infrastructure, public investment, and climate change and variability.

Prof R S Desh Pande, a renowned economist, pointed out that we are at a stagnant point in agriculture, and the sustainability of agriculture would be very challenging. He mentioned that commercialisation (cropping method) and greed are the two major enemies of sustainability. He mentioned that largely we are getting the technology which is cost increasing techniques rather than cost-saving which ultimately leads to the decline of the net income of the farmers from the last two decades.

Advancing into the event, Prof P S Birthal, National Professor, ICAR-NIAP, PUSA Delhi, India, illuminated the audience with his strategic discussion on Agricultural Technologies and Supply Chains for Sustainable Agricultural Development. He discussed that in all revolutions in agriculture and allied activities in India, a common element had been the technology, although it was driven by different agents. He mentioned that technology is a key source for agricultural growth. Investment in research and development has increased but much less than the several developing and developed countries globally. He also mentioned that growth in agricultural markets had not kept pace with growth in agricultural production. Markets are inefficient because of poor infrastructure and communication networks that result in the higher cost of trade to sellers and buyers, along with asymmetric information between them. He has given some suggestions for farmers to benefit from, i.e., doorstep offtake of the produce, access to improve technology, quality inputs, access to credit insurance against market price, and diversification from water-guzzling crops like rice.

Prof Prem Vashistha from Sharda University highlighted the research innovation done by IFCO for liquid urea. A bottle of 5 ml urea is equally effective to one bag of urea, which is economical and reduces the burden of subsidy from the government. He mentioned this kind of revolution we required in all the areas for sustainable agriculture reducing subsidies. He also gave stress on linkages between institutions with the market are very important.

While talking on the role of technologies for sustainable agriculture, Dr Anjani Kumar, a senior fellow from International Food Policy Research Institute, South Asian Office, Delhi, mentioned how research is essential. Dr Kumar indicated that marginal returns to agricultural R&D expenditure are low for high-income states while more for low-income states. His research shows that R&D significantly impacts reducing poverty and inequality. He also mentioned that the seed replacement rate is frequently high in developed states while very low in underdeveloped states.

Almost 20 distinguished panellists and 20 presenters, along with more than 100 participants, attended the event. Dr Ananda Rao Suvvari, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, SRM University-AP, cordially thanked all the speakers and panellists for their efforts to make the conclave a grand success.

Pre-Event Release: https://srmap.edu.in/events/economics-international-conclave-role-technology-sustainable-agricultural-growth/