Why it is more profitable to invest money in agricultural R&D, roads and irrigation than on subsidies

A book titled Supporting Indian Farms: the Smart Way that brings out the advantages of investing money in agriculture and infrastructure and not on subsidies was released by Mr Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister of India, on 18 September 2018. The book was co-authored and edited by Dr Marco Ferroni, CGIAR System Management Board Chair; Dr Ashok Gulati, Infosys Chair Professor at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER); and Dr Yuan Zhou, Head of Research and Policy Analysis, Syngenta Foundation of Sustainable Agriculture.

The book talks of a modeling exercise that reveals that the marginal returns in terms of number of people brought out of income poverty or higher agri-GDP growth are almost 5 to 10 times more if the public money is spent through investments in agri-R&D, roads, irrigation etc., compared to the same money spent as subsidies on fertilizers and power.

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