eChapters

Introduction

Research and development (R&D) is one of the main components to tackle the problems persisting or likely to take place in future. Priority areas of research are depending upon the overall situation and requirements of the problem under consideration. Under these broad areas, topic of interest for research may be varying at different geographical level from household to nation or global. If it is addressing vast geographical area like states, nations, regions and/or global, there may be many individuals/groups/institutions are working over similar type of problems. With the growing communication facilities and rising fund requirements, collaborative research programmes emerged to provide effective and economic solution to the problem with respect to time, money and manpower etc. Earlier, it was limited to high priority areas like defense and long run planning of the nations or kingdom at nation or state level. Declining environmental conditions and biological diversity became global concern in seventh decade of twentieth century. To tackle this problem, The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm) resolved to establish the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in 1972. Further, to speed up the progress, global community through world leaders had identified two burning priority areas during conference United Nations (U N) Environmental Programme Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, well known as Earth Summit. One of those two priority areas was Biological Diversity. To address the issues at global levels, The Convention on Biological Diversity was signed by party nations, which was later ratified by the 187 countries. India is also one of the signatory nations and need to fulfill some time bound commitments. Moreover, later, importance of biodiversity and germplasm has been underlined by different forum at regional and global level for its present and future values in the life of human kind. Countries and various geographical regions are now becoming more and more aware about its judicious exploitation, conservation and sustained higher output over period of time.

Introduction

Pulse production in India has fluctuated widely with no long-term trend, leading to a steady decline in per capita availability per day, i.e. from 60.7 grams to 33.40 grams during 1951 to 2001, while its average requirement is about 65 gram per day per head. The pulses used to serve a low cost food to meet the protein requirement of a large sector of people in India. But, the pulses are becoming out of reach for the common people of country because of its continuing shoring prices. A Technology Mission on Pulse production was launched by Government of India in 1986-87 as a special drive to increase the pulse production in the country. The vision of Technology Mission of Pulse is attaining self reliance in pulses for household nutritional security and sustainability of the production system. The mission statement was to increase Pulse production from existing (IX plan) 131.4 lakh tonnes to 162 lakh tonnes; Productivity from 594 kg/ha to 702 kg/ha and per capita availability of pulses from 35 g to 40 g per day at affordable price. Unfortunately, the country has not been able to achieve self-sufficiency in the pulse production. During the last 40 years, the acreage under pulse crops and its production remained almost between 21-24 million hectares and 10-15 million tonnes, respectively. Consequently, the country has had to depend on import of pulses every year to meet the part of its shortage. The National Commission of Agriculture had estimated that the country should plan to produce about 25 million tonnes of pulses by the end of 2000, but we could achieve only about 14 million tonnes. Presently, the area and the production of pulse crops account for about 18.50 and 7.20 per cent (2003-04) of total area under foodgrains and total food grains production in the country, respectively.

Logical Framework Approach (LFA) is a framework for designing change process, monitoring progress and evaluating impact. It is a powerful tool for project design, management, assessment, follow up and evaluation of projects. In designing change process, monitoring progress and evaluating impact, ordering the change process in a logical sequence where inputs or resources identify as necessary means for performing activities are very important. Specific activities are then identified because they result in outputs which are necessary to achieve objectives. The two terms i.e.; log frame and logical framework approach are sometimes confused by many. The log frame is a document whereas the logical framework approach is a project design methodology. LFA originally developed by the American Defense Department and was first formally adopted as a planning tool for United State Agency for International Development (USAID) by the end of 1960’s and today it is being used, in one form or other and with different names, by major organisations in the field of development co-operation and private industry. Among these are British DFID, the OECD expert group on Aid Evaluation, ISNAR International Service for National Agricultural Research, Germany’s GTZ and the Inter-American Development Bank. It has also been widely adopted by NGOs, though not without reservations and concerns by some. In the 1990s it was often mandatory for aid organisations to use the LFA in their project proposals.

Introduction

The acute food shortage was a major challenge in confronting the development of the country after independence with rapidly increasing population. Massive financial assistance of credit and subsidy under various rural development programmes unveiled by government could not yield desired impact on poverty and unemployment. The benefits of farm research did not reach the resource poor farmers. Several researchers indicated that the devolution of democratic decision-making at the village level was lacking.

The major task of bridging the gap between farmers and the scientific knowledge is in the hands of extension workers who should act as “conveyer belts” in communicating appropriate scientific knowledge and skills already available to the farmer in a smooth and acceptable form and in securing the adoption of these improved techniques. They must assess the intentions prevailing in the minds of rural people, their relationships and interactions, their groups, their institutions, their organizations and the culture, which influence the behaviour at large. They need to understand their motives, reactions, receptivity to new ideas, hidden resources of rural people and social and cultural obstacles prevailing in the society with their active participation.

To elucidate the hidden facts from the well-knit social, cultural and behavioral patterns, a family of approach known as “Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)” techniques is widely employed to understand the existing farming situations, problems, and opportunities in the rural areas. PRA techniques can also be used in evaluation and impact assessment in agricultural and allied enterprises and projects that can indicate the success and failure to plan for better future.

Introduction

Impact assessment is the process of identifying the future consequences of a current or proposed action. It is used to ensure that projects, programmes and policies are economically viable, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable. Programme Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) efforts are critical issues in management of agricultural research and development (R & D). In times of fiscal constraint, more emphasis is placed on accountability and programme effectiveness. As a management tool, PME is an integrated approach that incorporates the viewpoints of clientele, policy-makers, researchers and donors to address the intended goals. Public and private support to research will depend largely on efficiency issues and ability to reckon with multiple objectives, ranging from food security to sustainability, poverty alleviation, gender issues, export, etc. The PME of agricultural R & D projects is critical when the intended R&D has multiple outcomes. Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of development activities provides government officials, development managers, and civil society with better means for learning from past experience, improving service delivery, planning and allocating resources, and demonstrating results as part of accountability to key stakeholders (World Bank, 2004).

1.    The concept of agribusiness was born in Harvard University in the year____________.

(a) 1947

(b) 1956

(c) 1967

(d) 2006

2.    In agriculture education system, the concept of “Agribusiness” was first time used by

(a) John Davis

(b) P F Drucker

(c) Henery Foyal

(d) F.W. Taylor

1.    Thomas Malthus suggested that population growth _____________.

(a) Would eventually lead to starvation and death as it exceeded the land’s potential to produce food

(b) Would lead to strong and better societies

(c) Would grow at a slower rate than land’s potential to produce food

(d) And the land’s potential to produce food would grow at the same rate

2.    Which population growth rate is likely to add relatively more to younger age population (youth effect on size of labour force)?

(a) Larger

(b) Smaller

(c) Uncertain

(d) Population growth rate does not affect the age structure of population

1.    Operations Research provides ___________.

(a) Earliest solution

(b) Feasible solutions

(c) Scientific approach to solutions

(d) Statistical approach to solutions

2.    Operations Research totally eliminates ___________.

(a) Quantitative approach

(b) Intuitive approach

(c) Qualitative approach

(d) Decision makers ability

1.    The first step in an econometric study should be to___________.

(a) Develop the specification

(b) Collect the data

(c) Review the literature

(d) Estimate the unknown parameters

2.    OLS stands for what in Econometrics?

(a) Optimally linearized solution

(b) There is no such thing in econometrics

(c) Ordinary least squares

(d) None of these

1.    Normally economic growth refers to ___________.

(a) Growth in actual nominal per capita output

(b) Growth in potential real per capita output

(c) Growth in actual real per capita output

(d) Growth in potential real per capita output

2.    Which one of the following is not true about economic development?

(a) Problem of under developed country

(b) Its discontinuous and spontaneous change

(c) It means more output only

(d) Its innovative process

1.    ___________means studying, examining and analyzing the financial aspects are pertaining to farm business.

(a) Agricultural finance

(b) Finance management

(c) Accounting management

(d) All of these

2.    Agricultural finance deals with the :–

(a) Acquisition of fund

(b) Use of fund

(c) Management of funds

(d) All of these

1.    A series of activities involved in moving the agricultural goods and services from production point to ultimate consumers is known as–

(a) Agricultural marketing

(b) Agricultural selling

(c) Marketing

(d) Agricultural finance

2.    The study of all the activities, agencies and policies involved in the procurement of farm inputs by the farmers and the movement of agricultural products from the farm to consumers is known as :–

(a) Personal selling

(b) Agricultural marketing

(c) Rural marketing

(d) None of these

1.    A farm is a

(a) Producing unit

(b) Consuming unit

(c) Both of a & b

(d) None of these

2.    Farm is a_________unit.

(a) Economic

(b) Social

(c) Decision making

(d) All of these

1.    The term “macroeconomics” has been derived from a Greek word?

(a) MICROS

(b) MIKROS

(c) MAKROS

(d) MACROS

2.    Who coined the term ‘macro economics’?

(a) A. Smith

(b) Samuelson

(c) A. Marshall

(d) Ragner Frish

1.    The word “economics” has been derived from the Greek word_______ which means household management?

(a) OIKONOMICAS

(b) OIKOS

(c) NOMOS

(d) OICONOMICAS

2.    The term “microeconomics” has been derived from a Greek word ____________.

(a) MICROS

(b) MIKROS

(c) MACROS

(d) MACROS

Q.1.    What is the most fundamental assumption to be followed by random variable for using the standard method of parametric statistics or parametric inference ?

    Answer
    
    The most fundamental assumption required to be followed by random varibale for using the parametric statistics to have statistical inference drawn from certain set of data is that the random variables have normal distribution.

Preliminaries and Test Based on N. P. Lemma
    
More on Testing of Hypothesis

Method of Maximum Likelihood Estimation (M.L.E.)
    
Method of Moments
    
Method of Minimum X²
    
Interval Estimation

Preliminaries
    
Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimator and Cramer, Rao Inequality
    
Minimum Variance Unbiased Estimator (M.V.U.E.) and Black Wellisation
    
Results on UMVUE and MVUE
    
Efficiency and Consistency
    
Consistency
    
Sufficiency and Completeness
    
Distribution Possessing Sufficient Statistics
    
Sufficient Statistic for Several Parameters
    
Completeness of a Sufficient Statistic
    
Some Important Results in Theorem Forms
    
Minimal Sufficient Statistic
    
Results on Complete Sufficient Statistic

Q.1.    Under what situation, the exact sample tests are required to be used and who discovered it first time ?