Agricultural Extension Reforms in South Asia: Status, Challenges, and Policy Options is based on agricultural extension reforms across five South Asian countries, reflecting past experiences, case studies and experiments. Beginning with an overview of historical trends and recent developments, the book then delves into country-wise reform trajectories and presents several cases testing the effectiveness of different types (public and private) and forms (nutrition extension, livestock extension) of extension systems. Further, the book provides a comprehensive overview of challenges and constraints faced in formulating and implementing reforms, tying the results into a concrete set of lessons and highlighting areas that require further research. In addition, the book discusses how a major aspect of agricultural development is the productivity increase from the knowledge base of farmers, and how translating research results into a knowledge base for farmers requires designing and implementing well-functioning extension programs.

This book examines the successful private, public and civil society models of agriculture value chains in India and addresses relevant challenges and opportunities to improve their efficiency and inclusiveness. It promotes the value-chain approach as a tool to improve access to finance for small holder farmers and discusses the possible structure of and regulatory framework for the 'National Common Agricultural Market'- a term that featured in the Indian Finance Minister's 2014-15 budget speech, and which is aimed towards standardizing and improving transparency in agricultural trade practices across states under a single licensing system. The book deliberates on the potential of developing innovative financial instruments into the value chain framework by supporting tripartite agreements between producers, lead firms and financial institutions. Its fourteen chapters are divided into three parts-Agriculture Value Chain Financing: Theoretical Framework, Agriculture Value Chain Financing in Cases of Select Commodities; and Institutional Framework for Agriculture Value Chain Financing. Since the concept of value chain financing is being considered as a future policy agenda, the book is of great interest to corporations dealing with agricultural inputs and outputs; commercial, regional, rural and cooperative banks; policy makers; academicians and NGOs.

This book explores structural changes in India's agrifood systems during the next ten to twenty years. The dynamics in the agrifood sector is explored in the context of the overall economy, taking into account agricultural and trade policies and their impacts on national and global markets. The contributors draw on qualitative and quantitative approaches, using both a national model - to focus on urban-rural relations and income distribution - and an international model to focus on patterns of economic growth and international trade.

A fundamental requirement of Agenda 21 of UNCED is to support sustainable development while safeguarding the Earth's environment. This requires optimal management of natural resources which depends on the availability of reliable and timely information at the global, national, regional and local scales. One such technology, "Geoinformatics", consisting of Remote Sensing (RS), Geographical Information System (GIS), and Global Positioning System (GPS) is source of reliable and timely information needed for natural resource management, environmental protection and addressing issues related to sustainable development. It offers a powerful tool for resource assessment, mapping, monitoring, modelling, management etc. It is also capable to make use of recent developments in the digital integration of human reasoning, data and dynamic models. These tools have been available for past three decades. Many institutions and organisations are carrying out various research and operational applications of direct relevance particular to natural resource management. However, there are still limitations in understanding the underlying science and research elements, as there are larger questions of capacity building to use geoinformatics in natural resource management and associated sustainable development applications. These programs also find gaps between the theoretical concepts and the operational utilisation of these tools. This could be solved by providing wide range of applications and prospective potential of this technology to the students and research community in this area. "Geoinformatics for Natural Resource Management" contains chapters written by noted researchers and experts. The focus emerged with filling a gap in the available literature on the subject by bringing together the concepts, theories and experiences of the experts in this field.