Street vendors have been in existence since ancient times. In all civilisations, ancient and medieval, one reads accounts of travelling merchants who not only sold their wares in the town by going from house to house but they also traded in neighbouring countries. Perhaps ancient and medieval civilisations were tolerant to these wandering traders and that is why they flourished. In modern times, we find that street vendors are rarely treated with the same measure of dignity and tolerance.

This book examines the production, procurement and marketing aspects of the organic produce sector with the focus on marketing agencies and producers in each commudity/product chain. It analyses the various institutional arrangements like contract farming, networking and producer level co-ordination prevalent in this sector. Based on case studies of various type of organic players in India, both in export market as well as in domestic market.

Contributed articles presented in Asia Pacific Regional Consultation on the Role of Family Farming in the 21st Century: Achieving the Zero Hunger Challenge by 2015, held at Chennai on August 07-10, 2014.

The agribusiness supply chain includes a number of processes such as supply management, production management, and demand management to customers through a competitive distribution channel. Each step of the way can be plagued with issues such as diversity of production and demand, bulkiness of produce, perishability, and seasonality. Highlighting t

"Smallholder farmers are the stewards of more than 80 percent of the world's farms. These small family businesses produce about one-third of the world's food. In Africa and Asia, smallholders dominate the production of food crops, as well as export commodities such as cocoa, coffee, and cotton. However, smallholders and farm workers remain among the poorest segments of the population, and they are on the frontline of climate change. Smallholder farmers face constraints in accessing inputs, finance, knowledge, technology, labor, and markets. Raising farm-level productivity in a sustainable way is a key development priority. Agribusinesses are increasingly working with smallholder farmers in low- and middle-income countries to secure agricultural commodities. More productive smallholders boost rural incomes and economic growth, as well as reduce poverty. Smallholders also represent a growing underserved market for farm inputs, information, and financial services. Working with Smallholders: A Handbook for Firms Building Sustainable Supply Chains (third edition) shows agribusinesses how to engage more effectively with smallholders and to develop sustainable, resilient, and productive supply chains. The book compiles practical solutions and cutting-edge ideas to overcome the challenges facing smallholders. This third edition is substantially revised from the second edition and incorporates new material on the potential for digital technologies and sustainable farming. This handbook is written principally to outline opportunities for the private sector. The content may also be useful to the staffs of governmental or nongovernmental development programs working with smallholders, as well as to academic and research institutions."--

This is a practical tool to help beekeepers, veterinarians and beekeeping advisory services to properly identify main honeybee diseases and to take the most appropriate actions in the apiary to control and/or prevent disease outbreaks. This publication follows the TECA publication Main bee diseases: good beekeeping practices (2018) which provided a more general overview of good beekeeping practices for bee diseases. This manual is a unique publication because, through its presentation of practical information, simple visuals, and understandable content, it helps beekeepers to correctly identify main honeybee diseases in a timely manner. More specifically, the manual creatively illustrates actions which facilitate the identification of disease symptoms. It also presents a comprehensive list of good beekeeping practices to adopt in the apiary as well as biosafety measures to reduce the risk of the introduction and the spread of main honeybee diseases. The manual’s overall objective is ultimately to support a more sustainable beekeeping sector.

This book locates the malignant causes behind the factors leading to farmers’ suicides in India. It argues that not only a combination of innovative managerial and economic policies is required to make farming profitable, but also food production within the carrying capacity of soil, water, forests and economic and social resources must still be maintained. It brings together diverse themes, such as farming development and suicide statistics, as well as the developmental inertia evident in farmers’ welfare policy history. The book stresses the need to go beyond the narrow crop economics of minimum support price utility and towards recognizing the farm household economic nature of farming, reinventing the uniqueness of farmers as a productive class engaged in converting cosmic elements into food and adopting the budgetary support approach to bail out the farmers from the suicidal, debt-multiplying, production support approach. Lucid and topical, this book will be useful to scholars and researchers of political studies, political sociology, agricultural economics, political economy, public policy, sociology, agrarian and rural development studies, as also to policy analysts, governmental bodies and civil society activists.

Major changes have been occurring almost unnoticed in staple value chains in Asia. The Quiet Revolution in Staple Food Value Chains documents and explains the transformation of value chains moving rice and potatoes between the farm gate and the consumer in Bangladesh, the People’s Republic of China, and India. The changes noted are the rapid rise of supermarkets, modern cold storage facilities, large rice mills, and commercialized small farmers using input-intensive, mechanized technologies. These changes affect food security in ways that are highly relevant for policymakers across Asia—the rise of supermarkets provides cheaper staples, more direct relations in the chains combined with branding have increased traceability, and the rise of cold storage has brought higher incomes for potato farmers and all-season access for potato consumers. The book also joins two debates that have long been separate and parallel—food industry and agribusiness development and market competitiveness—with the food security and poverty alleviation agend