The agrarian market constraint in India after fourteen years of economic reforms and trade liberalisation

South Asia: Journal of South Asia Studies

Volumn 28, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 233-247

  Patnaik, Utsa ^a  

^a JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSITY   (India)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRARIAN REFORM; ECONOMIC REFORM; LIBERALIZATION; MARKET CONDITIONS; TRADE;

ASIA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; INDIA; SOUTH ASIA; WORLD;

EID: 27744502823     PISSN: 00856401     EISSN: 14790270     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00856400500189961     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. See discussions in J. Halevy and Jean-Marc Fontaine (eds), Restoring Demand in the World Economy (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998);
2. and D. Baker, G. Epstein and R. Pollin (eds), Globalization and Progressive Economic Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
3. See P. Patnaik and C.P. Chandrasekhar, 'The Indian Economy under Structural Adjustment', Economic and Political Weekly (25 Nov. 1995).
4. A rising contribution of services to GDP from an initial situation of a high share of industry to GDP has been typical for advanced economies. India however is seeing a fast shift to services from a relatively low initial share of manufacturing and mining output, less than 30 percent of GDP, which is now down to about one-fifth. This shift to services reflects de-industrialisation and worsening income distribution.
5. I have tried to document some historical and current cases of the inverse relation between primary sector exports and domestic foodgrains absorption. See U. Patnaik, 'On the Inverse Relation between Primary Exports and Domestic Food Absorption under Liberalized Trade Regimes', in J. Ghosh and C.P. Chandrasekhar (eds), Work and Welfare in the Age of Finance (Delhi: Tulika, 2003).
6. See my discussion in U. Patnaik, 'Export-Oriented Agriculture and Food Security in Developing Countries and India', in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.31, nos.35-37 (1996), reprinted in The Long Transition - Essays on Political Economy (Delhi: Tulika, 1999);
7. and U. Patnaik, 'Global Capitalism, Deflation and Agrarian Crisis in Developing Countries', Social Policy and Development Programme, Paper Number 13, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), October 2003.
8. The Telugu Desam Party is a regional party which supported and was part of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA coalition.
9. I have discussed this in more detail in U. Patnaik, 'Food Stocks and Hunger - Causes of Agrarian Distress', in Social Scientist, Vol.31, nos.7-8 (July-Aug. 2003);
10. and U. Patnaik, 'The Republic of Hunger', in Social Scientist, Vol.32, nos.9-10 (Sept.-Oct. 2004).
11. A falling share of food expenditure in total expenditure is a necessary, but not a sufficient, index of the consumer becoming better off. The food spending share can fall when a person is getting worse off because income is falling, and some food expenditure has to be sacrificed to buy fuel (which is jointly demanded with foodgrains), incur transport costs in search of work, and so on. Data for sub-Saharan African countries show dietary 'diversification' i.e. falling share of calories from cereals and rising share from animal products, when absolute calorie intake is declining. See Patnaik, 'Food Stocks and Hunger - Causes of Agrarian Distress', for a discussion.
12. See R. Nayyar, Rural Poverty in India (Oxford University Press, 1991);
13. and J. Mehta and S. Venkataraman, 'Poverty Statistics - Bermicide's Feast', in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.35 (1 July 2000) for critiques of the official method.
14. See A. Deaton, 'Adjusted Poverty Estimates for 1999-2000', in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.38 (25-31 Jan. 2003);
15. and A. Deaton, 'Prices and Poverty 1987-2000' in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol.38 (25-31 Jan. 2003).
16. See M. Swaminathan, 'Excluding the Needy - The Public Provisioning Of Food in India', in Social Scientist, Vol.30, nos.3-4 (Mar.-Apr. 2002).
17. India produces cereals and cotton at the lowest unit cost of production after China, and could easily out-compete advanced-country producers on global markets if the latter's agriculture was not subsidised.
18. See C.P. Kindelberger, The World in Depression 1929-1939 (Pelican Books, 1987) for the deflationary policies welcomed by international creditors which were followed by Bruning, Germany's 'Hunger Chancellor', in the face of rising unemployment in the early 1930s, which discredited the Weimar Republic.
19. See R.F. Kahn, 'The Relation of Home Investment to Employment' in Economic Journal, Vol.41, no.2 (1931), pp.193-8;
20. and Kindelberger, The World in Depression 1929-1939.
21. For an application to Indian policies see P. Patnaik, 'The Humbug of Finance', Chintan Memorial Lecture delivered 8 Jan. 2000 at Chennai, India [www.macroscan.org],
22. and also published as 'Swayed by the "Humbug Of Finance": Economic Policy Under the BJP-Led Government', in South Asia, Vol.XXV, no.3 (Dec. 2002), pp.131-46,
23. and in P. Patnaik, The Retreat to Unfreedom - Essays on the Emerging World Order (Delhi: Tulika, 2003).
24. J.V. Robinson, Economic Philosophy (London: C.A. Watts & Co., 1962), p.45.