World Food Policy WFP Volume 4, No. 2, Spring 2018 | Page 8

World Food Policy
The paper of Pingali and Aiyar presents and interesting lessons from the
inter-state differences in the India growth story. The paper informs that while the
impressive overall economic growth in India, is accompanied by large difference
across the Indian states. Stagnant under-nutrition is side by side with over-nu-
trition and low productivity subsistence small-scale agriculture exist along-side
large farms using green revolution and resulting high productivity growth. Their
paper proposes a new way to analyze interstate differences in growth and develop-
ment using the principles of structural transformation. The authors conclude that
there are 4 typologies of states: (1) those whose structural transformation has been
stunted by a low productive agriculture sector, (2) resource extraction dependent
states whose economic growth is weighed down by a low productive agriculture
sector, (3) states whose development has been led by agriculture and (4) those
whose development is led by other high growth sectors. Using this typology, the
authors derive hypotheses about the relationship between agriculture, nutrition
and incomes. They emphasize that reducing interstate inequality in development
outcomes require strategic investments.
The next paper is by Sukhpal Singh further analyses the food situation in
India by taking a closer look at the food value chains. It deals with the question
to what extent farmers in India benefit from foreign and domestic investments
in food retail supermarkets and how this improves farmer market linkages along
the food/fibre value chain. The author presents empirical evidence from the expe-
rience of wholesale supermarkets in India and identifies mechanisms that could
leverage investments in food supermarkets and the necessary policy framework
required to promote and protect the interests of small producers in such modern
value chains.
The sixth paper in this volume by Chen et al takes us back to China and
asks: Is Agricultural Investment in China Affected by Economic Slowdown? The au-
thors assess the impact of economic slowdown on agricultural investments in Chi-
na. Results show that when compared to the manufacturing and service sectors,
growth in agriculture was more resilient against overall economic slowdown. Con-
tinued growth in domestic demand for food demand and government support
are factors that can keep agricultural investments growing and further the adjust-
ments in the structure of agricultural investment. The authors also point out that
increasing the efficiency of public investment in agriculture is equally important to
growth in investment volume. Likewise, balancing public and private investment
remains a challenge and more research is needed to demonstrate the effects of ag-
ricultural investment for poverty reduction and food security.
The next paper brings the important question of nutrition to the “discus-
sion table”. It is titled “Food security and nutrition in rural India: Understanding
state level heterogeneity” by Pingali and co-authors. This paper follows the line of
thinking of the paper on the Indian growth story. In this paper, the authors discuss
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