The measures of poverty involves a) the specification of the threshold income level below which a person is considered poor (the poverty line) and b) construction of an index to measure the intensity and severity of poverty suffered by those whose income is below the poverty line. Sen(1976) has...

Decentralizing a large, complex national extension system is not easy, but the Government of India appears to be moving toward this long-term goal. Although ATMA model has been successful in addressing many of the extension problems and has shown exceptional impacts during the NATP phase but it...

In India, poverty reduction is one of the major objectives of economic development programmes. Though, India was the first country in the world to define poverty as the total per capita expenditure of the lowest expenditure class, which is required to ascertain a minimum intake of 2400 kcal/day...

The MAPs provide opportunities for developing a variety of safe and cost effective, prophylactic, and curative medicines for a number of maladies. It is estimated that the primary health care of over 80 per cent of the world’s population still depends on plant based traditional medicines (WHO,...

Livestock production, especially dairy, has long been an important activity for smallholder and resource-poor farmers in India, both for household nutrition and income. Most of the livestock are kept in mixed farming systems, where crop residues, mainly cereal straws have been an important feed...

Livestock is an integral part of rural economy in Bihar and fodder is a critical input for livestock development. Data shows that there exist a huge gap between demand and supply of fodder (both dry as well as green). Most part of the south Bihar comprising of agro climatic zones, IIIA and IIIB...

Market integration is an important determinant of responsiveness and behavior of the markets needed to formulate price policies. Indian wholesale milk markets are correlated with varying degrees of integration. Paper uses monthly wholesale prices of milk for the period from April 1997 to...

Dairy farmers in Bihar are mostly smallholders having one or two local-bred milch animals, which are raised on crop residues and natural pastures with under-employed family labour. Feeding grains, oil cakes and green nutritious fodder are limited to crossbred cattle. Feed and fodder deficiencies...

Changing patterns of food consumption, linked to economic growth, and coupled with demographic changes are resulting in increased demand for livestock products in developing countries. However, one of the key constraints of the dairy development in resource poor areas of India is inadequate...

Bihar has predominantly an agrarian economy of Rs 180 billion which provides employment to about three-fourth of its working force and crop sector generates employment of more than 120 million labour days in a year. In Bihar, breed replacement rate has been slow mainly due to collapse of Public...