India’s Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is the largest public works employment project in the world. Its most direct poverty reduction pathway is through boosting employment and income for the poor.

Among the four largest cotton-producing countries, only Pakistan had not commercially adopted Bt cotton by 2010. However, the cultivation of first-generation (Cry1Ac) Bt cotton, unapproved and unregulated, increased rapidly after 2005.

Taking successful development interventions to scale is critical if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and make essential gains in the fight for improved agricultural productivity, rural incomes, and nutrition. How to support scaling up in these three areas, however, is a major challenge.

India is home to one-third of the world’s malnourished children. This figure that remains stubbornly high, despite the country having the second-fastest growing economy in the world, with agriculture accounting for a significant part of that growth.

As the population continues to grow and natural resources become scarcer, the need to shift toward an environmentally responsible, socially accountable, more equitable, and “greener” economy has become increasingly apparent.

By now it is well recognized that agricultural development is important for enhancing nutrition. Agriculture-nutrition linkage has become an emerging area for research and policy in developing countries like India. Earlier studies have shown that there has been a disconnect between agriculture and nutrition particularly regarding policies.

Agricultural research and innovation has been a major source of agricultural growth in developing countries.

Vulnerable populations are minimally resilient to shocks, whether caused by humans or natural disasters.

This is first new annual IFPRI publication provides a comprehensive, research-based analysis of major food policy challenges at the global, regional, national, and local levels. Highlights important developments in food policy that occurred in 2011 and takes a look forward into 2012.

While a number of empirical studies have demonstrated the role of Bt cotton adoption in increasing Indian cotton productivity at the farm level, there has been questioning around the overall contribution of Bt cotton to the average cotton yield increase observed these last ten years in India.