Agriculture and food in India : A half-century review from independence to globalization

More than a fifth of the world's farmers live in India, which has over a billion inhabitants to support and feed. From Independence in 1947 to the lifting of trade barriers in 2001, this book explains how the Indian Union has succeeded in becoming one of the world's leading food producers, but also why it is still a land of poverty.

The various aspects of the question are addressed, from the environment (cultural and natural, local and international) to institutions and food products. The ins and outs of the green revolution are obviously discussed, but so are those of other less familiar coloured revolutions (white for dairy, yellow for vegetable oils, blue for aquaculture), not forgetting horticultural and poultry dynamics, as well as products that give India its flavour (spices, tea and other plantation crops). Three core issues are debated at the end: the unsolved problem of poverty and under-nutrition, the worrying deterioration of natural resources, and the recent economic liberalization.

This half-century review, which takes the form of a handbook for a broad readership, enlightens us on both the past and future paths of the world's biggest democracy.

Bruno Dorin, Ph.D. in economics and postgraduate in agricultural engineering as well as management, is now a CIRAD researcher (Montpellier, France). He lived in India for eight years, first in Andhra Pradesh for his doctoral work (1990-1), then in New Delhi as CSH Director and researcher (1995-2000). His two main books in English are The Indian Entrepreneur (Manohar, 2003) and Agricultural Incentives in India (Manohar, 2004).

Frederic Landy is a professor of geography at the University of Paris X-Nanterre (GECKO laboratory), a fellow of the Institute Universitaire de France and an associate researcher with the Centre d'Etudes de I'lnde et de I'Asie du Sud (CNRS-EHESS).
His publications include Feeding India: The Spatial Parameters of Food Grain Policy (Manohar, 2009) and his co-edited volumes Reconfiguring Identities and Building Territories in India and South Africa (Manohar, 2005) and Globalization and Local Development in India: Examining the Spatial Dimension (Manohar, 2004).