National Council of Applied Economic Research
The Government of India has focused its attention on doubling the farmers’ income during the seven-year period from 2015–16 to 2022–23, marking a significant departure from past policies when the emphasis had been only on production rather than the marketability of the produce. In order to provide analytics for this focus, a Committee on Doubling Farmers’ Income was constituted in April 2016 under the chairmanship of Dr Ashok Dalwai, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The Committee has adopted three institutes as its knowledge partners. While the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) is one of them, the other two are the National Institute of Agricultural Research Policy (NIAP), and the National Centre for Cold Chain Development (NCCD). The DFI Committee has held multiple consultations with stakeholders across the country and has co-opted more than 100 resource persons to help it in drafting the Report. These members have been drawn from among researchers, academics, non-government organisations, farmers’ organisations, professional associations, trade, industry, commerce, consultancy bodies, policymakers at the Central and State levels, and many others with various domain strengths. While thirteen volumes of the DFI Committee Report have already been prepared, Volume XIV on the Comprehensive Policy Recommendations of the DFI Committee is in the process of finalisation. The Committee has identified six major sources for increasing farmers’ income, viz., improvement in crop productivity, livestock productivity, resource use efficiency or promoting savings in the cost of production, increase in cropping intensity, diversification towards high-value crops, and enhancement of the real prices received by farmers. With the DFI strategy focusing on doubling the farmers’ income, all those associated with the programme at both the Central and State levels need to disaggregate the interventions for achieving a higher share of farm income in the farmers’ cumulative income. Hence, it has been targeted to change the ratio of farm to non-farm income from the existing 60: 40 (in 2015–16) to 70: 30 (by 2022–23), which would ensure greater viability for farming.
The DFI Reports can be accessed at:
http://www.agricoop.nic.in/doubling-farmers
Sanjib Pohit is a Professor at NCAER. He is an experienced modeler in the area of trade and environment with 20 years of modelling experience. His domain of research experience includes science and technology policies, institutional economics, transport economics, input-output models, FDI, informal trade, automobile industry, and South Asian integration. Previously, he held position at... Read More
Devender Pratap is a Senior Fellow at NCAER. His current research interests include trade policy analysis/CGE modelling, GTAP database, social accounting matrix, input output analysis, construction of base-run for CGE modelling, macro-econometric modelling and agricultural/livestock economy. At NCAER, he has handled three major CGE models in single-country and multi-country frameworks. He has also been involved... Read More
Ruchi Jain is a Senior Research Analyst at NCAER. She is a demographer by training. Her primary research interest is in public health, gender, reproductive and sexual health and migration. At NCAER, she has worked on various projects like IDRC, IHDS and Rural Housing. Currently she is working with the National Data Innovation Centre. Her doctoral... Read More
