Introduction and objectives: West Bengal is one of the few Indian states which implemented land reforms, called “Operation Barga” in 1978. The spectacular agricultural growth witnessed in the 1980’s and early 1990’s is attributed by many in the literature to Operation Barga. Nevertheless, it has…

Hydrological modeling is an indispensable component of water resources research and management in large river basins. There is a tendency for each new group working in a basin to develop their own model, resulting in a plethora of such tools for each major basin. The question then becomes: how…

The rituals of riparian communities are frequently linked to the flow regimes of their river. These dependencies need to be identified, quantified and communicated to policy makers who manage river flows. This paper describes the first attempt to explicitly evaluate the flows required to…

India’s 2.25 million ha of village tanks were for centuries loosely managed as multiple use common property resources, including for fishing by artisanal fisher-folk, the lowest in the social hierarchy. During the 1970s and after, the aquaculture productivity revolution created a vibrant new…

Water productivity (WP) and water footprint (WFP) are popular concepts in research and discourses on water management. Yet there are concerns about their theoretical validity and practical value. This paper shows that the water production function, the concept with a sound theoretical foundation…

Despite the popularity and the unique nature of women's self-help groups in India, evidence on the economic impact of these groups is scant. On the basis of two rounds of surveys of 2,517 households, we use a strategy of double differences and propensity score matching to assess the…

En este libro se cuenta el relato de estas siete décadas de historia de la FAO, de sus protagonistas y de sus hechos. Se han rescatado del archivo de la FAO imágenes inéditas en blanco y negro de los primeros años de la Organización que configuran un portfolio de intensas y hermosas imágenes. El…

This book tells the story of these seven decades of the history of FAO, its protagonists and their endeavours. We have dug into the FAO archives to bring to light unpublished black and white images, which form a portfolio of evocative images of the early years of the Organization. The book is…

Large-scale land acquisitions have increased in scale and pace due to changes in commodity markets, agricultural investment strategies, land prices, and a range of other policy and market forces. The areas most affected are the global “commons” – lands that local people traditionally use…

Cost recovery from irrigation in almost all the countries presents a dismal picture. Low cost recovery coupled with declining government finances has led to the deterioration of both the quality of the built infrastructure and institutions managing and governing such infrastructure. This has…

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the major determinant of soil quality, and it greatly influences global carbon cycling and climate change. This paper is a synthesis of the literature on soil carbon research in India, including soil organic and inorganic carbon stocks, in the form of thematic maps…

Exposure to arsenic and the use of arsenic-contaminated groundwater in agriculture causes serious health issues. Complete or partial contamination of groundwater is reported worldwide, especially in the Eastern Gangetic Basin (EGB). This study aims to create an overall assessment of arsenic…