Agro and Food Processing Industry in India: Inter-sectoral Linkages, Employment, Productivity and Competitiveness

This book provides different facets of India’s agro and food processing industry in both organised and unorganised segments. It brings forth the topical issues having potential to accelerate the pace of growth in its employment, investment and productivity and strive for improving the global competitiveness. Using advanced quantitative techniques, it brings new evidences on inter-sectoral (agriculture-industry-services) employment and production linkages, contractual arrangements through Farmer Producer Companies, and subcontracting in the processed food sector. It also throws light on India’s comparative advantage in export of primary and processed food products.

With rising per capita income, urbanisation, and changing food habits of people, India is increasingly striving to improve productivity and competitiveness in agriculture and manufacturing. A concerted policy focus to accelerate private investment in food processing, largely viewed as a sunrise industry, is expected to contribute to large scale job creation and external trade not only in the manufacturing but also in the agricultural sector. Keeping this in mind, considerable insights are featured in the book at the industry and firm levels due to a significant bearing of technological, tariffs and non-tariff barriers and labour regulations on their trade intensity, employment and efficiency. Containing perspectives from the top agriculture and industry economists in the country, the book will be very useful to researchers, academicians, trade analysts and policy makers.

Seema Bathla is Professor, Centre for Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Before joining JNU, she worked in the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG), The Energy Research Institute (TERI) and Delhi University, all premium research institutions of India. She obtained her M.Phil. from Delhi School of Economics and Ph.D. from JNU. She has published six books (five co-authored) and more than 60 research articles in refereed national and international journals. Having keen interest in agricultural issues she has carried out several research studies and undertaken assignments for the World Bank, IFPRI, UNCTAD, WWF-India and IASRI. She was conferred Jawaharlal Nehru Award for Outstanding Post-Graduate Agricultural Research by the Indian Council of Agriculture Research, New Delhi in 2008. She is also the recipient of Dr. R.T.Doshi award for best paper published in Agricultural Economics Research Review in 2014 and 2015 and the 2018 Dr. S.R. Sen Biennial Award given by Indian Society of Agricultural Economics for her book on trade liberalization and Indian agriculture.

Dr. Elumalai Kannan is Associate Professor at the Centre for the Study of Regional Development (CSRD), Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He has worked at various reputed organisations such as the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAEPR), New Delhi, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), New Delhi office, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Madras School of Economics, Chennai and Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Kannan has undertaken important research studies on inclusive agricultural growth, stagnation in productivity of important crops in India, agrarian change and farm sector distress, pre and post-harvest losses, contract farming and impact evaluation of agricultural development programmes. He has published several research papers in various reputed journals and contributed to edited volumes on different themes.