October 2021 | Vol. I, Issue 2
During the last quarter of this year we had launched the very first issue of ICRIER – APSI’s quarterly bulletin, AF-TAB. It received much appreciation and encouragement from our readers, motivating us to conceptualize a special issue to mark India’s 75th year of Independence.
Providing an overview of Indian agriculture in the course of these seventyfour years, the articles in this issue focus on the challenges facing the cereal abundant agriculture of this country. Despite our phenomenal leap from a food deficit to a food sufficient state, ironically, food security is still a matter of concern. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in their press release for this year’s Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences has rightly pointed out: “Many of the big questions in the social sciences deal with cause and effect… These questions are difficult to answer because we have nothing to use as a comparison”. This calls for rigorous empirical research, especially to back up policies that have to deal with potentially conflicting objectives like productivity – profitably – sustainability. In a protracted sense, hence, this issue of AF-TAB is also a tribute to the spirit of empirical research as celebrated at this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics.
Deepak Mishra
Director & Chief Executive
ICRIER
