Articles by R Thamarajakshi

Developing countries had hoped that the Agreement on Agriculture negotiated as part of the Uruguay Round and signed at Marrakesh in 1994 by 120 countries would open up export markets for their products in the developed countries. In the past six years, however, these countries have found that several asymmetries and inequities in the agreement were not conducive to their interests. These concerns were voiced at several meetings and the WTO was urged time and again to first attend to these implementation issues before widening the scope of the WTO at the Fourth Ministerial Conference. This article discusses the progress reflected in this regard in the Doha declaration.

It is time that efficiency considerations prevail in public spending in agriculture and market signals are allowed to come into full play so that changes in agricultural investment and production are demanddriven in response to domestic and international prices. Government should focus on productive investment, technology and research, marketing and storage and agro-processing facilities and provision of food safety-nets for the vulnerable poor and development of a diversified agriculture in line with emerging demand patterns.

Ecology and Sustainable Development R Thamarajakshi Geological Economics; A Practical Program me (or Global Reform, The Group of Green Economists; Zed Books, London, 1992; pp 162.

R Thamarajakshi This paper examines the performance of agriculture in the Indian economy in the context of changing trends in the commodity terms of trade between agriculture and the rest of the economy. Aggregate terms of trade, it is argued, do not seem to enter as such in the calculus of farmers' production decisions. On the other hand, real factors which promote growth of crop yields and which impart relative stability to agriculture have a deciding influence on profitability of agriculture. Perhaps the causality is from production to terms of trade THE subject of terms of trade between agriculture and rest of the economy is an area of enduring interest to development analysts. There are changing and complex relations between the sectors in the process of growth. Changes in terms of trade are an aspect of changing intersectoral relationships. When economies develop, demand patterns diversify and production patterns adjust to these demand patterns leading to structural changes in work force and gross domestic product. Consequently, commodity terms of trade also change in the course of development. The question is whether, in the dynamic context, movements in terms of trade at the sectoral level significantly alter farmers' decisions. This paper examines the performance of agriculture in the Indian economy in the context of differential trends in the commodity terms of trade in the past decades.

G V K Rao R Thamarajakshi The agricultural scene has undergone a qualitative change. Especially in food production the Country has overcome 'scarcity'. A number of administrative, technological, social and structural innovations have resulted in this situation. There is also a stability in agriculture which can make it witlistand weather variations. Full exploitation of the irrigation potential and of input possibilities should enable the country to achieve the targets it has set before it.