Uncertain price movement in staple food commodities puts agrarian economies at risk if not monitored and managed consistently. Hence, an attempt has been made to analyze the price behavior and integration across major wholesale and retail markets for rice and wheat in India. Monthly data (July 2000 to June 2022) on prices viz. wholesale and retail were sourced from the Food and Agriculture Organization and analyzed using growth rate, instability index, seasonal price index, Bai-Perron’s test for structural breaks, Johansen’s test on cointegration, Granger causality test, and impulse response function. Findings indicated strong evidence of price dynamics in the selected markets in terms of spatial and temporal variation, clear-cut seasonality linking to production, and price divergence between wholesale and retail markets. Johansen’s test indicated a strong cointegration between wholesale and retail prices after accounting for structural breaks, exhibiting unidirectional-, bidirectional- and no causality. Impulse response analysis revealed that the selected wheat and rice markets are efficient in terms of ‘price discovery’ which takes place initially in the wholesale market, and is then transmitted to the retail market. The study advocates decision-making information to the producers, traders, and consumers who are interested in taking advantage of the price movement. It is concluded that strengthening the market intelligence and reducing the distortion in markets will improve the existing overall performance.

The resource investment pattern and cost and returns structure of Poultry birds on an average in poultry farms have been analyzed for the year 2015–16. The broiler as well as the layer farming in poultry enterprise has been found profitable in West Bengal. The study based on primary and secondary data collected from 120 poultry farmers by adopting purposive sampling. The total fixed cost in layer farming was estimated to be 0.66 per cent of the total cost for 1000 birds per batch. The return structure of layer farms indicates the total returns from the sale of eggs, sale of culled birds and manure from 1000 birds as Rs. 431590. Among the overall total returns, the sale of eggs accounted for about 91 per cent followed by sale culled birds (7.83 per cent). The net returns were Rs. 82946 per annum of 1000 birds. Net returns per month were found to be Rs. 6912 per 1000 birds. Garrett's ranking technique was used to identify the constraints in the poultry farming and marketing in the study area.

India is the world's second-largest producer of food next to China and has the potential of being the biggest industry. It is necessary to study the consumption pattern under the changing situations of liberalization, privatization and globalization. The average monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) in 2004–05 was 599 and 1052 in rural and urban India. The share of nonvegetable items was found to be more in high monthly per capita expenditure groups ( 433.49). The expenditure on cereals was found to be increasing with increase in total expenditure. Thus the consumption of cereals declined in Kolkata over the periods. The monthly per capita consumption of pulses was almost stable over the two periods in Kolkata. The overall per capita monthly expenditure was lowest for butter than curd and paneer. The percent share of per capita monthly expenditure found for curd was lower than ghee and ice-cream. There were positive association between the type of family and annual food expenditure revealed that the annual expenditure would be more for joint families. The food habit dummy exerted a positive influence on food expenditure for consumers. The positive relation implied that the food expenditure would be more for non-vegetarian consumers. The expenditure elasticity was almost near to one in the case of milk, vegetables. The expenditure elasticities for different food items varied between 0.72 and 1.014 in the case of cereals and non-veg items.

Sharecropping is a practice of crop growing where a landlordagrees a tenant to use the land-dwelling in return for a share of the crops produced on that land area.Share cropping is asignificant age old agricultural practise in West Bengal. A massive scope is there to enhance production of paddy in the study area through aggregate the productivity of the crop with the adoption of developedvarieties and improved methods of rice cultivation in owed time and space on a sustainable foundation. Results from the study showed that 26.49 per cent of the total operational holding area was put under share cropping cultivation in rice cultivation, which varied from 19.65 per cent in marginalfarmsto26.86percentinlargefarms. Thus, Share cropping in West Bengal found to be acomplementaryand supplementary source of farm revenue.There seems to be still abundant scope in the study area, to make share cropping more cost-effective as the productivity of rice crop is 2898 kg/ha quite smaller than the Punjab’s productivity (3828 kg/ha) and also smaller than Egypt which has largest productivity in the world.

Uncertain price movement in staple food commodities puts agrarian economies at risk if not monitored and managed consistently. Hence, an attempt has been made to analyze the price behavior and integration across major wholesale and retail markets for rice and wheat in India. Monthly data (July 2000 to June 2022) on prices viz., wholesale and retail were sourced from the Food and Agriculture Organization and analyzed using growth rate, instability index, seasonal price index, Johansen’s test on cointegration, Granger causality test, and impulse response function. Findings indicated strong evidence of price dynamics in the selected markets in terms of spatial and temporal variation, clear-cut seasonality linking to production, and price divergence between wholesale and retail markets. Johansen’s test indicated a strong integration between wholesale and retail markets exhibiting unidirectional-, bidirectional- and no-causality. Impulse response analysis revealed that the selected wheat and rice markets are efficient in terms of ‘price discovery’ which takes place initially in the wholesale market, and then transmitted to the retail market. The study advocates decision-making information to the producers, traders, and consumers who have a potential interest in getting advantage of the price movement. It is concluded that strengthening market intelligence and reducing the distortion in markets will improve the existing overall performance.

The full organic state, Sikkim, is endowed with rich natural resources and a suitable agro-climate to produce a diverse range of spices. The present study was carried out during the period from 2019-20 to 2023-24 to assess economic viability, technical efficiency, and associated risk in organic ginger and turmeric cultivation and to analyze the constraints faced therein during the period of transitions at Sikkim. The study was conducted using a mixed method of data collection, and a total of 100 organic farmers cultivating both ginger and turmeric were purposively selected from the identified villages. The findings of the study reveal that ginger and turmeric showed marked improvements over the study period, with benefit-cost ratio increasing from 0.87 to 1.83 and from 0.82 to 1.33, respectively, while net returns increased from −₹34,902 to ₹321,817 ha⁻¹ for ginger and from −₹30,980 ha⁻¹ to ₹88,658 ha⁻¹ for turmeric. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique was employed for measuring the relative technical efficiencies and scale efficiencies of the farms. The mean pure technical efficiency score for organic ginger was improved from 59.00 per cent in 2019–2020 to 81.00 per cent in 2023–2024, while that of organic turmeric increased from 49.00 per cent to 74.00 per cent during the same period. The finding of the study supports the hypotheses that the benefits of organic cultivation need to be examined in the long run, considering its impact beyond yield. The findings of the Minimization of Total Absolute Deviations (MOTAD) Model revealed a significant reduction in income variability and production risk in organic ginger and turmeric cultivation from 2019 to 2020 to 2023–2024 in Sikkim. Organic turmeric cultivation was comparatively more vulnerable than ginger, as evidenced by its higher income variability and lower efficiency level. The findings from this study will help policymakers to take appropriate measures for promoting and upscaling organic farming in other northeastern states and hilly areas, as well as in spice growing areas.