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Subbiah Arunachalam*, K Umarani

M S Swaminathan Research Foundation
Third Cross Street, Taramani Institutional Area, Chennai-600113
* Address for correspondence: arun[at]mssrf[dot]res[dot]in; Fax: 91 44 2541319

 

ABSTRACT

India's contribution to research in agriculture and related fields in 1998 is assessed from an analysis of publications indexed in CAB Abstracts. There were 11,855 publications from India, including 10,412 journal articles, from more than 1,280 institutions in 531 locations, spread over 30 states/ union territories. CAB Abstracts has classified these papers into 21 major research fields and 243 subfields. Plants of economic importance is the leading area of research in India, followed by animal science . The three subfields with the largest number of papers are: Pests, pathogens and biogenic diseases of plants(1,301 papers), Plant breeding and genetics (1,135 papers), and Plant production (786 papers). In contrast, there were only 54 papers in Biotechnology. Academic institutions accounted for a little over 59% of the papers in 1998, as against 63.4% in the five years 1990-94, and scientific agencies of the central government accounted for 22% of the papers. Agricultural universities published 4,039 papers and agricultural colleges 523 papers. CCS Haryana Agricultural University (473 papers), Punjab Agricultural University (390 papers), Indian Agricultural Research Institute (378 papers) and University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (253 papers) were the leading contributors. Indian researchers used 854 journals to disseminate their research results. They published over 78% of the 10,412 journal articles in 208 Indian journals, 587 papers in 180 UK journals, and 368 papers in 124 US journals. In no other field Indian researchers publish such a large percent of papers in Indian journals. Letters journals were used only infrequently, only 317 papers were published in 40 letters journals. More than 8, 060 papers were published in non-SCI journals, and 1,925 papers were published in journals of impact factor less than 1.0. Only 33 papers were published in journals of impact factor higher than 3.0. New Delhi, Bangalore, Hisar, Ludhiana and Coimbatore are the cities publishing large number of papers, and Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Haryana are the leading states. We have identified institutions publishing large number of papers in different subfields, in different journals, in journals of different impact factors, etc. This macroscopic analysis not only provides an inventory of India's publications; but also, gives an idea of endogenous research capacity. If appropriately linked with public policy, it can help restructure the nation's research priorities.

KEYWORDS: India; Agricultural research; CAB Abstracts; Scientometric study.

INTRODUCTION

Ensuring food and nutrition security of more than a billion people is a great challenge for India today. It requires increased production of grains, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, fruits, milk, poultry, fish, and meat, making the produce available to the people at affordable prices, and seeing that the food consumed is absorbed and assimilated by the population. The first step, of course, is to produce more food despite dwindling resources. As India has gone global, there is also the threat to Indian farmers, especially after the removal on 1 April 2001 of most of the quantitative restrictions on imports on agricultural products and consumer goods, from large scale imports of food grains and processed foods of all kinds at prices they cannot match. Experts like Prof M S Swaminathan argue in favour of ushering in what they call the `evergreen revolution' to ensure food production at levels that can take care of the food and nutrition security of the growing population and adopting policies that are friendly to the local farming communities [1,2]. Undoubtedly, India needs to strengthen both research and public policy in order to improve the productivity, profitability, stability and sustainability of the major farming systems. Research needs to be strengthened, for example, to improve rice and wheat yields. Policy should address issues such as how to help small and marginal farmers to get better yields from increasingly fragmenting landholdings, often less than an acre per farming family; how to get the food to the ultra-poor; and how to use agricultural growth to eradicate poverty [3]. Look at the irony. The storehouses of the Food Corporation of India are overflowing with unsold grain, estimated between 45 and 60 million tonnes (in June 2001), a third of which is rotting in the open, and yet 250-300 million people do not have enough to eat [3]. This has led to talk of grain mountains and hungry millions coexisting. Again, value added in the Indian food industry is 15-20%, compared with over 100% in some developed countries [3]. There is considerable scope for research in food preservation and processing. Three decades ago when India went through difficult times, the agricultural research establishment played the role of a savior and came up with some remarkable achievements. Will India's agricultural researchers be able to meet the new challenge? It is with a view to answering this question that we have attempted not only to inventory agricultural research in India but also to provide an appreciation of endogenous research capacity in this crucial field.

Scientific literature is a mirror of scientific research around the world. Except for some classified work performed by defence research establishments and by corporate research laboratories, all scientific work ends up as publications in the open literature, most of it in refereed journals. Apart from journals, both refereed and un-refereed, new knowledge may be announced in conferences, reports, patents, books and book chapters, newsletters, etc and of late in `Open Archives'. If one wants to capture all publications originating from a country in a given field, ideally one has to search these varied sources. That would be pretty difficult, if not impossible. The best alternative then is to search a database dedicated to the field. If one wants to map agricultural research in India, one could look at Current Contents _ Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Science edition, a leading current awareness tool, published weekly by the Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, PA, AGRIS, AGRICOLA, or CAB Abstracts. Incidentally, no database can capture everything that is published in a field. There will always be some conference held or some obscure journal or newsletter published from a remote corner of the world. Besides, databases have policies on what will be included what will not be, call it a threshold of quality if you wish. One way to overcome this problem is to search more than one database. While combining two or more databases will capture a higher proportion of the publications that one wants to capture, it would by no means ensure 100% comprehensiveness. In addition, one has to spend considerable time and energy in standardizing the different formats followed by different databases.

This report maps agricultural research in India as seen from publications that came out in 1998 and indexed in CAB Abstracts. A few years ago one of us had prepared a report entitled Agricultural Research in India: A Profile Based on CAB Abstracts 1990-1994 [4]. CAB Abstracts was preferred to the other secondary services, such as Current Contents _ Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Science, AGRIS and AGRICOLA, because it covered a much larger number of primary sources than the other three databases. The report mapped agricultural research in India based on papers with an Indian address indexed in five years of CAB Abstracts. Arunachalam and his colleagues have also analysed India's contribution to other fields based on the literature indexed in major international databases such as Medline [5,6], Biological Abstracts [7], MathSci [8], Science Citation Index [9], Materials Science Citation Index [10], and Compumath Citation Index (to be published). More recently, Arunachalam and Jayashree have mapped fish research in India and China, based on bibliographic data collected from six databases [11,12]. From our past experience with mapping Indian science, we know that agricultural research is performed in a larger number of institutions and locations and is published in a larger number of journals than any other field of science.

METHODOLOGY

Bibliographic information on all papers having an address in India in the byline and published in the year 1998 was downloaded from CAB Abstracts on CD. As papers published in 1998 will have been abstracted long after 1998 we scanned the CD-ROM discs of CAB Abstracts covering the whole of 1998, 1999 and the early months of 2000. The elements downloaded were: address, source (journal, volume, pages), publication year, publication type, and classification codes. Unlike ISI's citation index databases, CAB Abstracts gives the address of only one author even if a paper has many authors, and therefore, we have missed all jointly authored papers where the Indian authors' addresses have not appeared. Another problem common to many non-ISI databases is that in many cases they do not provide the name of the country in the address field. To take care of this problem, we developed a search strategy where we had listed not only `India' in the search based on address field, but also the names of Indian states and hundreds of Indian cities and towns where agriculture-related research could have been done. This led to capturing a few entries from outside India. For example, the search term `Kochi' in the address field will not only capture papers from Kochi (Cochin) in Kerala but also papers from Kochi in Japan. Similarly, the search term `Salem' will attract papers from Winston-Salem in the USA. Such non-Indian entries were removed before the data was analysed. A third problem is the non-standard rendering of names of institutions. Often agricultural universities are named `Krishi Vishwavidyalaya' or `Krishi Vidyapeeth' (the Hindi equivalent). Names of institutions were standardized. Occasionally, papers from some cities (or towns) which are not part of India are erroneously assigned to India by the database. These were also removed by careful manual checking. We added the country of publication of each journal from sources such as CAB International Serials Checklist (1995 edition), Serial Sources for the BIOSIS Previews Database (1993 edition), and Publist (a Web source of information on serials). For some journals, which were not found in these three sources, we gathered information from CABI's headquarters in the UK. We found the impact factors for journals in which Indian researchers have published their work, wherever available, from Journal Citation Reports 1997. The data was analysed by document type, journals used, country of publication of journals, impact factors of journals, subfields at two different levels, institution, institution type, city/town, and state. Wherever possible we have compared our results for 1998 with the results for 1990-1994.

ANALYSIS
Distribution by Journal

There were 11,855 documents in all, including 10,412 (about 88%) journal articles, 838 conference papers, and 132 books/book chapters. In all, Indian researchers have used 854 journals to publish their work. Seventeen journals have published 100 or more papers (Table 1), 35 journals each between 50 and 100 papers, 64 journals each between 25 and 50 papers, and 96 journals each between 10 and 25 papers. At the other extreme, 332 journals have published just one paper each and 117 journals two papers each. In the top 116 journals, in which Indians have published 25 or more papers, only seven are foreign journals: International Rice Research Notes, Philippines, 20th rank, 83 papers; Biologia Plantarum, Czech Republic, 63rd rank, 46 papers; Buffalo Journal, Thailand, 84th rank, 35 papers; Fitoterapia, Italy, 85th rank, 33 papers, Cruciferae Newsletter, UK, (26 papers), Phytochemistry, UK (26 papers), and Journal of Agronomy and Crop Science, Germany (25 papers). Of the 854 journals, 40 are letters journals and newsletters and these have published 317 papers from India (3% of journal articles). Clearly, unlike in physics, in agricultural research in India (and probably elsewhere in the world), there is no sense of urgency in reporting one's findings. Of the 40 letters journals/newsletters, six are published from India. The newsletters in which Indian researchers have published papers include: Cruciferae Newsletter, UK, 26 papers; International Chickpea and Pigeonpea Newsletter, India, 25 papers; International Arachis Newsletter, India, 18 papers; International Sorghum and Millets Newsletter, USA, 12 papers; MFP News, India, 9 papers; National Bank News Review, Bombay, India, 9 papers; Fertiliser Marketing News, India, 7 papers; Lens Newsletter, Syria, 7 papers; Mycorrhiza News, India, 7 papers; Wood News, India, 5 papers; Agro Chemicals News in Brief, Thailand, 4 papers; Camel Newsletter, Syria, 3 papers; Palawija News, Indonesia, 2 papers; ILEIA Newsletter, the Netherlands, 1 paper; and International Rice Commission Newsletter, Italy, 1 paper.

Table 1: Journals Publishing 100 or more Indian Papers on Agriculture
[As recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998]

No	Journal Title	Impact Factor* (JCR 1997)	No. of Papers
1	Indian Veterinary Journal	0.000	355
2	Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences	0.043	207
3	Environment and Ecology	0.000	195
4	Karnataka Journal of Agricultural Sciences	0.000	191
5	Indian Journal of Animal Sciences	0.080	179
6	Insect Environment	0.000	167
7	Journal of the Indian Society of Soil Science	0.000	167
8	Indian Journal of Agronomy	0.020	160
9	Crop Research [Hisar]	0.000	150
10	Current Science	0.376	147
11	Indian Journal of Experimental Biology	0.000	142
12	Indian Forester	0.000	141
13	Annals of Agricultural Research	0.000	134
14	Madras Agricultural Journal	0.000	122
15	Advances in Plant Sciences	0.000	118
16	Journal of Maharashtra Agricultural Universities	0.000	112
17	Indian Phytopathology	0.000	100

Impact factors of journals not covered by JCR has been considered as 0.000 which may not be true in all cases. - Ed

Distribution by Journal Country

Unlike in physics, chemistry, new biology, medicine and mathematics, most papers from India in agricultural research is published in Indian journals. In 1998 Indian researchers have published 8,157 papers (> 78% of all journal articles) in 208 Indian journals compared to 77% in 1990-1994. In the five years 1990-1994, Indian researchers have used 483 Indian journals to publish 37,175 papers (77% of their journal papers). In life sciences, as seen from Biological Abstracts 1998, Indian researchers published 55.4% of papers in Indian journals [Arunachlam S, unpublished results]. In medicine, as seen from Medline Nov. 1987 _ Dec. 1994, 33.5% of papers from India were published in Indian journals [5]. In mathematics, as seen from MathSci 1988-1998, 38.5% of all Indian papers were published in Indian journals [8]. In 1998, Indian scientists published 587 papers in 180 British journals, 368 papers in 124 US journals, 307 papers in 77 Dutch journals, 191 papers in 67 German journals, and 99 papers in 21 Italian journals In all, in 1998 Indian researchers have published in journals published from 46 countries.

Distribution by Journal Impact Factor

More than 77.4% of the 10, 412 journal papers from India appeared in 441 non-SCI journals, and 18.5% of papers were published in journals of impact factor (IF) less than 1.0 (Table 2).

Table 2: Distribution of Indian Agricultural Papers by Impact Factor Range
[based on JCR 1997 data]

IF Range	No. of Journals	No. of Papers
0.0 or unknown	441	8061
>0.0 -0.5	105	1365
>0.5 - 1.0	131	560
>1.0-1.5	85	243
>1.5 -2.0	44	83
>2.0 -2.5	20	42
>2.5 - 3.0	10	25
>3.0 - 3.5	3	5
>3.5 - 4.0	5	11
>4.0 - 4.5	1	5
>4.5 -5.0	3	4
>5.0 -5.5	3	4
>5.5 - 6.0	1	1
>6.0 -7.0	2	3
Total	854	10412

Only 33 papers (0.3%) were published in journals of IF greater than 3. In contrast, about 55% of Indian papers in mathematics, as seen from MathSci 1993-1998 [8], 47.8% of Indian papers in medicine, as seen from Medline [5], 42.7% of Indian papers in life sciences as seen from Biological Abstracts 1998 [Arunachalam, S, unpublished results] and 11.5% of papers in new biology, as seen from SCI, Biochemistry and Biophysics Citation Index and Biotechnology Citation Index [Arunachalam, S, unpublished results] were published in non-SCI journals. In the area of new biology, only 333 of the 2,902 papers published by Indian researchers in 1995 were published in non-SCI journals, and 8.3% of papers were published in journals of IF greater than 3.0 [Arunachalam, S, unpublished results]. This comparison should not be taken to mean as a reflection on agricultural research in India. Agriculture, like mathematics and unlike new biology and to some extent physics, is a low-impact journal field. Besides, much of the research in agriculture is mainly of local relevance.

Distribution by Sub-fields

The 11,855 Indian papers are classified into 244 sub-specialties and 21 major areas (Table 3).

Table 3: Distribution of Indian Agricultural Papers by Major Areas
[as recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998 and 1990-94]

Major Areas	No. of Papers
	1998	1990-94
Plants of Economic Importance	4855	25563
Animal Sciences	1808	7654
Soil Science	910	2689
Forestry, Forest Products and Agro-forestry	763	2323
Pathogen, Pest and Parasite Management	757	2495
Human Health and Hygiene (General)	500	2191
Economics (General)	492	1718
Food Science and Food Products	452	1921
Natural Resources (General)	372	1112
Auxiliary Disciplines	239	1052
Sociology (General)	146	220
Aquatic Sciences	114	188
Agricultural Products (General)	86	470
Engineering and Safety	76	510
Forage and Feed Products (Non-human)	75	374
Wastes (General)	58	445
Biotechnology	54	231
Professions, Education, Informa-tion and Training (General)	49	79
Agriculture (General)	19	109
Administration of Agencies and Organizations	6	4
History and Biography	2	15
Medical and Veterinary Records	-	398
Unknown	22	-
Total	11855	51761

CAB Abstracts often classifies papers into more than one sub-specialty. For the purpose of this table, we have considered only the first mentioned sub-specialty. Plant related sub-specialties such as `Pests, pathogens and biogenic diseases of plants' (1301 papers), `Plant breeding and genetics' (1135 papers), and `Plant production' (786 papers) are popular with Indian researchers. The sub-field `Plants of economic importance' has the most number of papers i.e. 4,855; followed by Animal sciences (1,808 papers), and Soil science (910 papers). Three other subfields have 500 or more papers i.e. Forestry, forest products and agro-forestry (763); Pathogen, pest and parasite management, general (757); and Human health and hygiene, general (500). In the field of Biotechnology, there were only 54 papers in 1998 and 231 papers in 1990-1994. Compared to 1990-1994, there has not been many changes. There has been a considerable increase in the number of papers in the area `Professions, education, information and training' _ from 79 papers in five years to 49 in one year. Two other areas which have recorded a substantial increase are `Aquatic science' and `Sociology (General)'. The sub-field `Medical and veterinary records' (TT) is no longer in existence.

Distribution by Institution

More than 1,280 institutions are active in agricultural research India and have published at least one paper in 1998 that was found worthy of being indexed in CAB Abstracts . CCS Haryana Agricultural University has published the largest number of papers totaling 473, followed by Punjab Agricultural University (390 papers), Indian Agricultural Research Institute (378 papers), University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore (253 papers), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore (239 papers), Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat (229 papers), Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar (221 papers), and others. Twenty institutions have published 100 or more papers (Table 4); 18 institutions published between 50-99 papers; 55 institutions between 25-49 papers; and 113 institutions between 10-24 papers. At the extreme, 575 institutions have published just one paper each, and 207 institutions have published two papers each. There have been some minor changes from the previous period. For example, Punjab Agricultural University, the leading publisher of research papers in 1990-1994, slid to rank 2 and the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, moved up from rank 7 to rank 4.

Table 4: Distribution of Papers according to Institutions [ First 20 ]
[as recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998]

No.	Institution	City/Town	Number of Papers
1	Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University	Hisar	473
2	Punjab Agricultural University	Ludhiana	390
3	Indian Agricultural Research Institute	New Delhi	378
4	University of Agricultural Sciences	Bangalore	253
5	Tamil Nadu Agricultural University	Coimbatore	239
6	Assam Agricultural University	Jorhat	229
7	Indian Veterinary Research Institute	Izatnagar	221
8	University of Agricultural Sciences	Dharwar	213
9	G B Pant University of Agriculture and Technology	Pantnagar	212
10	Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya	Mohanpur	153
11	National Dairy Research Institute	Karnal	152
12	Banaras Hindu University	Varanasi	150
13	Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya	Jabalpur	142
14	Dr Punjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth	Akola	136
15	Himachal Pradesh Krishi Vishwavidyalaya	Palampur	127
16	Gujarat Agricultural University	Anand	119
17	Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology	Bhubaneswar	113
18	Indian Institute of Horticultural Research	Bangalore	104
19	Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry	Solan	101
20	Rajendra Agricultural University	Pusa	100

Distribution by Institution Type

Academic institutions (including universities and colleges) have accounted for 7,011 papers (59.1% of the 11,855 papers) (Table 5).

Table 5: Distribution of Agricultural Papers according to Types of Organizations
[as recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998]

Organizations	Number and Percentage of Papers
	1998	% age	1990-94	% age
Academic	7011	59.1	32805	63.4
Scientific Agencies (Central Govt.)	2614	22.0	10966	21.2
Ministries(Central Govt.)	548	4.6	1830	3.5
State Govt.	792	6.6	3614	7.0
Private	208	1.8	924	1.7
International	113	1.0	704	1.3
Home Address	8	0.1	122	0.2
Hospital	40	0.3	178	0.3
Foundation	46	0.3	137	0.3
Society	20	0.2	109	0.2
Bank	8	0.1	13	0.0
Project	-	-	63	0.1
Unknown	447	3.8	296	0.5
Total	11855	100	51761	100

In the earlier period i.e. 1990-94, academic institutions accounted for 63.4%. Central government research agencies (such as ICAR and CSIR) have raised their share from 21.2% in 1990-1994 to 22% in 1998. The share of ICAR institutes is a little over 17%, marginally higher than the 15.2% in the five years 1990-94. We have included Indian Agricultural Research Institute under ICAR, although it also has the status of a university. As expected, agricultural universities (4,039 papers) and colleges (523 papers) have published the largest number of papers. It is significant that general (arts and science) colleges have published 510 papers and general universities 1,744 papers More than 190 papers have come from medical colleges and universities. This is not surprising as CAB Abstracts does cover health-related research to some extent.

Distribution by State and City/Town

Uttar Pradesh is the state accounting for the largest number of papers (1,661), followed by Karnataka (1,117), Tamil Nadu (1,047), Maharashtra (851) and Delhi (807) (Table 6). Compared to 1990-94, Karnataka has moved up from the fifth position to the second and Maharashtra has slid from the second to the fourth. Delhi has overtaken Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal have overtaken Punjab. Among cities, New Delhi leads with 800 papers, followed by Bangalore (590), Hisar (482), Ludhiana (394), Coimbatore (346), and Hyderabad (307) (Table 6).

Table 6: Distribution of Agricultural Papers according to Indian States/Union Territories*
[as recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998]

No.	State/Union Territory*	No. of Papers
		1998	1990-94
1	Uttar Pradesh	1661	8327
2	Karnataka	1117	3984
3	Tamil Nadu	1047	4072
4	Maharashtra	851	4084
5	Delhi*	807	3666
6	Haryana	776	4017
7	Andhra Pradesh	687	3557
8	Madhya Pradesh	630	2091
9	West Bengal	572	2866
10	Punjab	483	2910
11	Kerala	454	1484
12	Himachal Pradesh	358	1799
13	Orissa	342	1158
14	Assam	336	737
15	Rajasthan	322	1798
16	Bihar	307	1303
17	Gujarat	293	1710
18	Jammu and Kashmir	93	675
19	Chandigarh*	56	507
20	Meghalaya	52	376
21	Andaman & Nicobar Islands*	41	157
22	Pondicherry*	36	130
23	Manipur	35	111
24	Tripura	16	51
25	Sikkim	13	54
26	Goa	12	60
27	Arunachal Pradesh	9	14
28	Nagaland	1	38
29	Mizoram	1	5
30	Lakshwadeep*	-	1
	Unknown	447	19
	Total	11855	51761

Thirty-one cities have published more than 100 papers each, and 18 cities each have published between 50 and 99 papers; at the other extreme, 196 cities have published just one paper each. There have been some minor changes in the ranks of cities/towns. Karnal has slipped from the 8th position in 1990-94 to 13th in 1998, and Mohanpur from the 9th to the 18th (Table 7).

Table 7: Distribution of Agricultural Papers according to Indian Cities/Towns [ First 30 ]
[as recorded in CAB Abstracts 1998 and 1990-94]

No.	City/Town	No. of Papers
		1998	1990-94
1	Delhi	800	3664
2	Bangalore	590	2086
3	Hisar	482	2545
4	Ludhiana	394	2636
5	Coimbatore	346	1666
6	Hyderabad	307	1643
7	Lucknow	286	1245
8	Jorhat	263	483
9	Jabalpur	263	754
10	Chennai	58	950
11	Izatnagar	251	923
12	Bhubaneswar	235	642
13	Karnal	228	1180
14	Dharwad	219	784
15	Pantnagar	214	938
16	Calcutta	190	904
17	Anand	157	821
18	Mohanpur	157	1013
19	Varanasi	153	740
20	Mumbai	152	688
21	Pune	150	664
22	Akola	142	563
23	Dehra Dun	168	883
24	Palampur	133	668
25	Tirupati	129	439
26	Nagpur	127	418
27	Ranchi	114	518
28	Trivandrum	108	450
29	Pusa	105	452
30	Raipur	105	198

Distribution of Papers by Institution and Sub-field, Journal and Journal Impact Factor

The full length report has also tabulated the number of papers published by selected institutions in different sub-fields. It has been seen that there is hardly any paper in plant-related areas from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute and National Dairy Research Institute. We have also constructed similar matrices on the number of papers published by selected institutions in different major areas and on the use of Indian and foreign journals by selected institutions. University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, and Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth publish many papers in local/in-house journals. Table 14 of the full length report lists the number of papers published by selected institutions in journals of different impact factor ranges up to IF = 3.5. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Banaras Hindu University and Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya have published a few papers in medium impact journals. In all 25 institutions that have published papers in journals of IF > 3.5. Indian Institute of Science has published seven papers; International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology four papers, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and National Institute of Immunology, three papers each and Delhi University two papers in journals of impact factor higher than 3.5. These papers in high impact journals are mostly papers in new biology and not agricultural research per se. A matrix of selected sub-fields and journals used to publish papers in those sub-fields by Indian researchers has also been provided in the full length report.

CONCLUSION

Agriculture, encompassing crop and animal husbandry, horticulture, forestry and agro-forestry, inland and marine fisheries and agro-processing, is the major determinant of the livelihood destiny of nearly 700 million people of India, and the farm sector still employs 60% of the nation's workforce, despite a dip of 4% during 1993-99 [3]. Agricultural progress holds the key to the nation's economic and political future. Indian agriculture is now at the crossroads, says Swaminathan [2]. On the one hand, the nation's capability in frontier areas of science and technology, as for example in biotechnology, information, communication and space technologies, nuclear and renewable energy technologies and in management science, has opened up uncommon opportunities for achieving an evergreen revolution in most farming systems based on knowledge and biological inputs rather than on chemical and capital intensive production methods [2]. There are, on the other hand, both internal and external threats to our agricultural progress. The most important among the internal threats is the damage to the ecological foundations essential for sustained agricultural advance, such as land, water, forests and biodiversity. Prime farmland is all the time going out of agriculture and groundwater depletion is proceeding at an alarming rate. The other major internal weakness is the mismatch between production and post-harvest technologies and between production and market demand [13], and the consequent need for the Government of India to undertake "trade relief" operations such as cyclone, flood and drought relief. The external threats include the unequal trade bargain inherent in the WTO agreement of 1994, and potential adverse changes in temperature, precipitation, sea level and ultraviolet B radiation. Added to this is President Bush's reluctance, if not refusal, to honour the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

India can face the internal threats only through integrated attention to regulation, education and social mobilisation through panchayati raj institutions. Also, there is need to restructure research strategies in a manner whereby strategic, anticipatory and participatory (i.e. with farm families) research receive adequate attention. Participatory research is essential for developing location-specific technologies. Similarly, extension services should become farmer-owned, controlled and capable of converting generic into location specific knowledge essential for taking to precision farming methods. The rural knowledge centres should provide computer-aided and Internet-connected information services, so that farm families have timely and relevant meteorological, management and marketing information [2]. Agriculture, which accounts for a quarter of India's economic output, not only remains tied to the whims of the monsoon rains but also increasingly to the vagaries of the market.

The future of Indian agriculture depends on three factors, viz. research, public policy and the farming community's cooperative action. The greater the synergy among these three factors the better it would be for India. This has been emphasized in the Chennai Declaration of the MSSRF-FAO Expert Consultation [14], which has three sections devoted to priority research areas, contributions of science, and the science _ policy link. Research does not mean merely laboratory research, it includes research that would inform policy in all its aspects. Scientific organizations need to work with farmers and fishers to move food security and nutrition higher up the political agenda. Much of life science and agricultural research is coming under proprietary science and unless India gears up publicly-funded agricultural research, there is the imminent danger of long-term dependence on multinational corporations for knowledge when agriculture is increasingly becoming knowledge intensive. In the late sixties and seventies, Indian agriculture research was able to tide over a major crisis through the introduction of the Green Revolution that eventually transformed India from a basket case to a food surplus country. Will it be able to do yet another rescue act? Lester Brown of the World Resource Institute has warned that by 2030 both China and India may have to import quantities of food unheard of in history _ 240 million tonnes for China and 40 million tonnes for India [15]. Can the Indian agricultural research establishment prove him wrong? Fortunately for India, there is great opportunity to raise productivity because of the gap between potential and actual yields. Unfortunately, India is investing less than 0.5% of agricultural GDP on research, says Dr S Balaravi, Assistant Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi.

This macroscopic analysis of agricultural research and related publications does not cover public policy and the collective action of farming communities. It is restricted to analyzing the research output over a one-year period _ in the form of published literature _ of Indian agricultural researchers as a whole. This paper has identified the institutions that are active, the areas in which they are active and the journals in which they publish their work. While there has been much activity in the areas of plants of economic importance and animal science, there were only 54 papers in the area of `Biotechnology'. There were only 231 papers in this area in the five years 1990-1994 [4]. Clearly, India appears to be slow in catching up in this rather important area, where companies like Aventis and Monsanto are doing pretty well. What is more, most of these papers in biotechnology have come from life science schools of higher educational institutions rather than agricultural universities. We wish to reiterate that it would be beneficial if researchers from centers of agricultural research and centers of biotechnology and new biology research in the university and national laboratory sectors could come together and work on joint projects.

To be of greater value to policymakers, we should refine this research programme to look at research at the level of individual crops. For example, what is being done to increase the production of under-utilised or minor crops and to use them in processed food? Other questions that would enhance the value of this research are: Is research being carried out to make agricultural production environmentally safe, economically viable and socially sustainable? If so, has it been successful? Have there been efforts to integrate research, priority setting, public policy and the farming community's action? What is the status of research in the area of agricultural extension services? Are there efforts to use new information and communication technologies and locally generated databases and make the farm families the central focus of these services? Or are men like Swaminathan crying in the wilderness?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Financial assistance from NISSAT of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi, is gratefully acknowledged. CAB Abstracts was purchased with funds provided by the Department of Biotechnology, New Delhi.

REFERENCES

• Swaminathan M S. For an evergreen revolution. The Hindu Survey of Indian Agriculture 2000. Chennai: The Hindu, 9-15.
• Swaminathan M S. Indian agriculture at the crossroads. Plenary lecture, 81st Congress of The Indian Science Congress Association, New Delhi, 2001.
• Grim reapers. A survey of India's economy. Economist; 2001: 2 June: 14-16.
• Arunachalam S. Agricultural research in India _ A profile based on CAB Abstracts 1990-1994, report submitted to NISSAT, DSIR, New Delhi, July 1998.
• Arunachalam S. How relevant is medical research done in India? A study based on Medline. Curr Sci 1997; 72: 912- 922.
• Arunachalam S. Mapping medical research in India: An analysis based on Medline Nov. 1987 _ Dec. 1994, report submitted to NSTMIS Division, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, March 1998.
• Arunachalam S. Mapping life sciences research in India: A profile based on BIOSIS 1992- 1994. Curr Sci 1999; 76:1191-1203.
• Arunachalam S. Mathematics research in India today: What does the literature reveal? Accepted for publication in Scientometrics, 2001.
• Arunachalam S, Srinivasan R, Raman V. Science in India - a profile based on India's publications as covered by Science Citation Index 1989-1992. Curr Sci 1998; 74: 433-441.
• Arunachalam S, Meyyappan N, Sridhar G S. India's contribution to the literature of materials science and related fields: An analysis based on Materials Science Citation Index 1991-1994, report submitted to NSTMIS Division, Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi, March 1998.
• Jayashree B, Arunachalam S. Mapping fish research in India. Curr Sci 2000; 79: 613-620.
• Arunachalam S, Jayashree B. Fish science research in China: How does it compare with fish research in India? Scientometrics 2001; 52: 13-28.
• Swaminathan M S. An evergreen revolution. Biologist 2000; 47 (2): 85-89.
• Chennai Declaration, MSSRF-FAO Expert Consultation on Science for Sustainable Food Security, Nutritional Adequacy and Poverty Alleviation in the Asia-Pacific Region, held at M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai, India, 25-28 June 2001.
• Brown L. Who will feed China? Wake-up call for a small planet New York: Norton, 1995.

The paper is a summary of the Report prepared under the National Mapping of Science Project, sponsored by NISSAT.

 

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Information Today & Tomorrow, Vol. 20, No. 4, December 2001, p.9-p.17
http://itt.nissat.tripod.com/itt0104/cabrep.htm