Responsibility of Agro Processing Industries in Rural Development
Most important point in the agro-processing is that a sizeable portion of raw material processed in them being rural based it has a very high employment potential with significantly lower investment. Agro-industry generates new demand on the farm sector for more and different agricultural outputs, which are more suitable for processing. On the other hand, development of these industries would relax wage goods constraints to economic growth by enhancing the supply of their products. In this context there is a need for improving the capacity of the agro-industries to harness backward linkages with agriculture and allied activities in order to efficiently convert part of the output to value added products acceptable to the domestic and international markets. This would generate employment opportunities for different types of skills through food processing, packaging, grading and distribution. At the same time this will transfer a size margin to farmers through market linkages.
Institutional Innovations and Models in the Development of Agro-Food Industries in India: Strengths, Weaknesses and Lessons
Agro-industries are given high priority in India particularly because of their great potential for contributing to development. The emphasis on village-based agro-industries was introduced almost a century ago in India by Mahatma Gandhi as an important ideology and corner-stone of the independence movement. The approach has undergone substantial transformation since then, but major challenges to its success in development remain: how to organize sustained production and procurement from large numbers of small farmers, how to ensure adoption of the right technology and practices to generate quantity and quality output at a reasonable cost, how to obtain capital for ensuring good processing technology and meeting the high working capital requirements in a fluctuating business, how to deliver strong marketing efforts to compete and open nascent markets, and how to ensure effective ownership, management and control to ensure performance for its main stakeholders of producers, consumers and investors. To address these challenges, effective institutional frameworks are a must, and a number of innovations and institutional models have emerged in India. These include the HPMC model, the AMUL model, the Pepsi model, the E-choupal model, the Nestle model, the Heritage model, the Suguna model, the Reliance model and more. The paper uses available literature and data to examine the performance of several of these models with respect to the above mentioned challenges. Many findings and lessons emerge which would be useful for business and for guiding supportive policies and practices in developing countries.
The development of biological systematics : Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, nature, and the natural system
A reevaluation of the history of biological systematics that discusses the formative years of the so-called natural system of classification in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shows how classifications came to be treated as conventions; systematic practice was not linked to clearly articulated theory; there was general confusion over the "shape" of nature; botany, elements of natural history, and systematics were conflated; and systematics took a position near the bottom of the hierarchy of sciences.